Searchable Theosophical Texts
Theosophy House
The
Secret Doctrine
Volume
3
Compilation
of H P Blavatsky’s writings
Published
after her death
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine,Volume 3
by H.P.Blavatsky
Published in the late 1800's
As for what thou hearest others say who
persuade the many that the soul when once freed from the
body neither suffers....evil nor is
conscious,I know that thou art better grounded in the doctrines
received by us from our ancestors and in the
sacred orgies of Dionysus than to believe them;for the
mystic symbols are well known to us who belong
to the Brotherhood.
Plutarch
The problem of life is man.Magic,or rather
Wisdom is the evolved knowledge of the potencies of man's
interior being which forces are divine
emanations,as intuition is the perception of their origin and
initiation our induction into that knowledge
...We begin with instinct;the end is omniscience.
A.Wilder
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Sect.Page
INTRODUCTORY 1
One Key to all Sacred Books 3
Assumptions Have to be Proven 5
The Spirit of Plato's Teaching 7
Self-Contradiction of the Critic 9
The Character of Ammonius Saccas 11
Plato a Follower of Pythagoras 13
Preliminary Survey 1 14
The Protectors of China 1 15
The A.B.C.Of Magic 1 17
Magic As Old As Man 1 19
The Tree of Knowledge 1 21
Occultism Must Win the Day 1 23
Black Magic at Work 1 25
Black Magic and Hypnotism 1 27
The Philosophy Stands on Its Own Merits 1 29
Modern Criticism and the Ancients 2 30
All Honour to Genuine Scientists 2 31
What is a Myth?2 33
Chaldean Oracles 2 35
The Origin of Magic 3 36
The Books of Hermes 3 37
What is the Origin of Magic?3 39
Pherecydes of
Cain Mathematical and Anthropomorphic 3 43
The Secrecy of Initiates 4 44
Exoteric and Esoteric Teachings 4 45
Origen on “Genesis ”4 47
The “Dark Sayings ”of the “Testaments ”4 49
The Greatest Crime Ever Perpetrated 4 51
Asiatic Religions Proclaim Their Esoterism Openly 4 53
The Wisdom-Religion 4 55
Some Reasons for Secrecy 5 56
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
The Key of Practical Theurgy 5 57
The Ladder of Being 5 59
Three Ways Open to the Adept 5 61
Man is God 5 63
Jesus Taught Reincarnation 5 65
The Dangers of Practical Magic 6 67
Names are Symbols 6 69
The Three Mothers 6 71
The Bible and Word 6 73
Moses and the Jews 6 75
Old Wine in New Bottles 7 76
Copies That Ante-Dated Originals 7 77
Which Were the Thieves?7 79
Character of the Bible 7 81
The Book of Enoch The Origin and the Foundation of
Christianity 8 82
The Book of Enoch and Christianity 8 83
Enoch Records The Races 8 85
The Book of Enoch Symbolical 8 87
Occultists Do Not Reject the Bible 8 89
Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines 9 91
The Kabalah and The Book of Enoch 9 93
Numbers and Measures 9 95
The Doctrine Belongs to All 9 97
Various Occult Systems of Interpretations -of Alphabets and
Numerals 10 98
Numbers and Magic 10 99
Gods and Numbers 10 101
The Universal Language 10 103
The Hexagon with the Central Point,or The Seventh Key 11 105
Occult Weapons 11 107
The Duty of the True Occultist Toward Religions 12 109
Christian and Non-Christian Adepts 12 111
Post-Christian Adepts and Their Doctrines 13 112
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Unfair Criticism 13 113
The Two Eternal Principles 13 115
Simon and His Biographer Hippolytus 14 117
Uneven Balances 14 119
Stones as “Evidences.”14 121
St.Paul the Real Founder of Present Christianity 15 122
Abrogation of Law by Initiates 15 123
Paul Changed to Simon 15 125
Peter a Jewish Kabalist,Not an Initiate 16 126
The Seat of Peter 16 127
Appollonius of Tyana 17 129
The Mysterious Teacher 17 131
Apollonius Cannot Be Destroyed 17 133
De Mirville on Apollonius 17 135
Apollonius No Fiction 17 137
Facts Underlying Adept Biographies 18 138
Jesus and Apollonius 18 139
Biographies of Initiates 18 141
Similarity of Legends 18 143
Nature of Christ 18 145
A Serious Mistranslation 18 147
Secret Doctrine of Jesus 18 149
The Cross and Crucifix 18 151
The Story of Jesus 18 153
The Primitive Woman 18 155
Kabalistic Reading of Gospels 18 157
Universal Teachings 18 159
St.Cyprian of
Magic in
Sorcerer Become Saint 19 163
The Eastern Gupta Vidya &The Kabalah 20 164
A Mystery Within a Mystery 20 165
Authorship of the Zohar 20 167
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Chaldaic and Hebrew 20 169
The First Men 20 171
Many Events Not Historical 20 173
The Real Hebrew Characters Lost 20 175
Hebrew Esotericism Not Primitive 20 177
The Concealed of all the Concealed 20 179
Three-in-one and Four 20 181
The Septenary Sephira 20 183
The Blind Leading the Blind 20 185
Hebrew Allegories 21 186
The Hebrew Bible does not Exist 21 187
Some Hebrews Were Initiates 21 189
The Seven Creative Gods 21 191
Seven Keys to all Allegories 21 193
Gerald Massey on the Seven Creators 21 195
The Father and Mother 21 197
The “Zohar ”on Creation and the Elohim 22 199
Angels as Builders 22 201
Who are the Elohim?22 203
Monad Duad and Triad 22 205
The Creative Gods 22 207
God the Host 22 209
What the Occultists and Kabalists Have to Say 23 211
The Mystery of the Sun 23 213
Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy 24 215
The Place of
Self-Generation Ex-Niholo?24 219
Are There Angels in Stars?24 221
Eastern and Western Occultism 25 222
Primordial Matter 25 223
The Great Deep 25 225
The Chaos of Genesis 25 227
The Bible of Humanity 25 229
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Chaos is Theos or Kosmos 25 231
One Hundred and Eight 25 233
The Idols and the Teraphim 26 234
Divining By Teraphim 26 235
Jehovah and Teraphim 26 237
Idol of the Moon 26 239
Egyptian Magic 27 241
Evidence of Papyri 27 243
Symbols and Their
Rebirth and Transmigration 27 247
The Egyptian Khous 27 249
Obsession in
Two Rituals of Magic 27 253
Magical Statues 27 255
Romances -But True 27 257
The Origin of the Mysteries 28 258
An Instant in Heaven 28 259
Growth of Popular Beliefs 28 261
A True Priesthood 28 263
The Egyptian Priests 28 265
Revealing and Reveiling 28 267
Atlanteans Degenerating 28 269
The Trial of the Sun Initiate 29 270
Vishvakarma and Vikarttana 29 271
The Transmission of Light 29 273
Masonry and the Jesuits 29 275
The Mystery “Sun of Initiation ”30 277
The Sun as God 30 279
The Objects of the Mysteries 31 281
Mysteries and Theophany 31 283
The Mysteries and Masonry 31 285
Traces of the Mysteries 32 287
Christos and Chrestos 32 289
The Symbolism of Narada 32 291
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Egyptian Initiation 32 293
The Self-Sacrificing Victim 32 295
Orpheus 32 297
The Last of the Mysteries in
Alesia and Bibractis 33 299
The Learning of
The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries 34 303
The Root Races 34 305
The “False Gnosis ”34 307
Teachers of Ammonius 34 309
Difficulties and Dangers 34 311
The
Symbolism of Sun and Stars 35 315
The Circle Dance 35 317
Christian Astrolatry 35 319
Michael the Conqueror 35 321
The Christian Sun-God 35 323
Pagan Sidereal Worship or Astrology 36 325
The Planetary Angels 36 327
Celestial Wheels 36 329
The Promethean Mystery 36 331
The Souls of the Stars —Universal Heliolatry 37 332
Christian Star-Worship 37 333
A Singular Confession 37 335
Astrology and Astrolatry 38 337
The Defence of Astrology 38 339
Its Later Deterioration 38 341
Its Prominent Disciples 38 343
Cycles of Avatâras 39 345
An Unfulfilled Prophecy 39 347
Secret Cycles 39 349
Secret Cycles 40 350
The Naros 40 351
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Age of the Vedas 40 353
Testimony of the Song Celestial 40 355
Mackey's Arguments 40 357
The Doctrine of Avatâras 41 361
All Avatâras Identical 41 363
Voluntary Incarnation 41 365
Cardinal De Cusa 41 367
The Seven Rays 41 369
Special Cases 41 371
The Higher Astral 41 373
The Seven Principles 42 374
The Mystery of Buddha 43 376
Shankarâchârya 43 377
The Buddha Cannot Reincarnate 43 379
A Fuller Explanation 43 381
Sacrifice 43 383
Shankarâchârya Still Living 43 385
“Reincarnations ”of Buddha 44 386
Vajradhara 44 387
Living Buddhas 44 389
An Obscure Passage 44 391
An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha 45 393
A Mistaken View 45 395
Nirvana-Moksha 46 396
The Ãkâsha 46 397
Matter is Ever Giving 46 399
Blind Faith Not Expected 46 401
What Annihilation Means 46 403
The Secret Books of “Lam-Rin ” and Dzyan 47 405
Amita Buddha Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-Yin —What the
“Book of Dzyan ”and the Lamaseries of Tsong-Kha-Pa Say 48
407
Tsong-Kha-Pa —Lohans in
The Lost Word 49 411
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Tibetan Prophecies 49 413
A Few More Misconceptions Corrected 50 414
Misrepresentations of Buddhism 50 415
A Mysterious Land 50 417
Absurd Conclusions 50 419
Materialistic Orientalists 50 421
Introduction of Buddhism into
The 'Doctrine of the Eye'and The 'Doctrine of the Heart'or
the
'Heart's Seal'51 424
Swedenborg Claims 51 425
The God 'Who'51 427
More Misrepresentations 51 429
Âryâsanga 51 431
Note 52 434
A Warning 52 435
The Jewel of the Lotus 52 437
The Pythagorean Tetrad 52 439
Seven Correspondential Contents 52 441
Correspondence Between Races and Man 52 443
Man and The Logos 52 445
Cosmic Spiritual and Physical Centres 52 447
Woman and Alchemy 52 449
Sound and Colour 52 451
The Days of the Week 52 453
An Explanation 52 455
Astrology and Lunar Weeks 52 457
Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colours 52 459
Planetary and Human Bodies 52 461
Planets and Faculties 52 463
Simon Magnus the Magician 52 465
Series of Æons 52 467
The Triple Æon 52 469
Magic and Miracles 52 471
Magic a Divine Science 52 473
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
The Seven Hierarchies 52 475
Origins 52 477
Colours and Principles 52 479
The Primordial Seven 52 481
The Hierarchies and Man 52 483
Wisdom and Truth 52 485
Occult Secrecy 52 487
The Light and Dark Sides of Nature 52 489
Nature's Finer Forces 52 491
The “Seven Principles ”52 493
The Auric Egg 52 495
Five or Seven Tattvas 52 497
The Tattvas 52 499
Esoteric and Tântra Tables of the Tattvas 52 501
Hatha and Râja Yoga 52 503
The Awakening of the Seventh Sense 52 505
The Master Chakras 52 507
The Human Harp 52 509
The Duality in Manas 52 511
The Living and the Dead 52 513
Gaining Immortality 52 515
Light and Life 52 517
The Two Egos 52 519
Death of the Soul 52 521
Reincarnation of Lower Soul 52 523
The Dweller on the Threshold 52 525
The Word 52 527
The Divine Witness 52 529
Appendix 52 530
A Mantra Operative 52 531
Colour and Spiritual Sound 52 533
Musical Table 52 535
Notes on Some Oral Teachings 52 537
The Dweller on the Threshold 52 539
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Fear and Hatred 52 541
Triangle and Quaternary 52 543
Prâna and Antahkarana 52 545
Sacred Centres of Body 52 547
Ãkâsha Nature's Sounding-Board 52 549
Kosmic Consciousness 52 551
Divisions of the Astral Plane 52 553
Kosmic Planes 52 555
Differentiation 52 557
Men and Pitris 52 559
Power of Imagination 52 561
Why Cycles Return 52 563
Talas and Lokas 52 565
States of Consciousness 52 567
Man and Lokas 52 569
Yogîs in Svarloka 52 571
Consciousness and Self-Consciousness 52 573
Scales of Consciousness 52 575
Vibrations and Impressions 52 577
The Crucifixion of the Christos 52 579
Rising Above the Brain 52 581
Christ and Apollonius 52 583
The Beginnings 52 585
Karmic Effects 52 587
Fire is Kriyâshakti 52 589
Responsibility and the Ego 52 591
Functions of the Astral Body 52 593
Page 11.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
PREFACE
The task of preparing this volume for the
press has been a difficult and anxious one and it is necessary
to state clearly what has been done.The papers
given to me by H.P.B.were quite unarranged and had
no obvious order;I have therefore taken each
paper as a separate Section and have arranged them as
sequentially as possible.With the exception of
the correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of
obviously un-English idioms,the papers are as
H.P.B.left them save as otherwise marked.In a few
cases I have filled in a gap but any such
addition is enclosed within square brackets,so as to be
distinguished from the text.In "The
Mystery of Buddha"a further difficulty arose;some of the Sections
had been written four or five times over each
version containing some sentences that were not in the
others;I have pieced these versions together
taking the fullest as basis,and inserting therein everything
added in any other versions.It is,however with
some hesitation that I have included these Sections in
the Secret Doctrine .Together with some
most suggestive thought they contain very numerous errors of
fact and many statements based on exoteric
writings,not on esoteric knowledge.They were given into
my hands to publish as part of the Third
Volume of the Secret Doctrine,and I therefore do not feel
justified in coming between the author and the
public,either by altering the statements,to make them
consistent with fact or by suppressing the
Sections.She says she is acting entirely on her own authority
and it will be obvious to any instructed
reader that she makes -possibly deliberately -many statements
so confused that they are mere blinds,and
other statements -probably inadvertently -that are nothing
more than the exoteric misunderstandings of
esoteric truths.The reader must here as everywhere use
his own judgment but feeling bound to publish
these Sections,I cannot let them go to the public without
a warning that much in them is certainly
erroneous.Doubtless,had the author herself issued this book,
she would have entirely rewritten the whole of
this division;as it was it seemed best to give all she had
said in the different copies,and to leave it
in its rather unfinished state for students will best like to have
what she said as she said it even though they
may have to study it more closely than would have been
the case had she remained to finish her work.
The quotations made have been as far as
possible found and correct references given;in this most
laborious work a whole band of earnest and
painstaking students,under the guidance of Mrs.Cooper-
Oakley have been my willing assistants.Without
their aid it would not have been possible to give the
references,as often a whole book had to be
searched through in order to find a paragraph of a few lines.
This volume completes the papers left by
H.P.B.with the exception of a few scattered articles that yet
remain and that will be published in her own
magazine L cifer.Her pupils are well aware that few will be
found in the present generation to do justice
to the occult knowledge of H.P.B.and to her magnificent
sweep of thoughts but as she can wait to
future generations for the justification of her greatness as a
teacher so can her pupils afford to wait for
the justification of their trust.
ANNIE BESANT
Page 12.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
INTRODUCTORY
(Page 1)"POWER belongs to him who
knows;"this is a very old axiom.Knowledge -the first step to
which is the power of comprehending the truth
of discerning the real from the false -is for those only
who have freed themselves from every prejudice
and conquered their human conceit and selfishness,
are ready to accept every and any truth once
it is demonstrated to them.Of such there are very few.The
majority judge of a work according to the
respective prejudices of its critics,who are guided in their turn
by the popularity or unpopularity of the
author rather than by its own faults or merits.Outside the
Theosophical circle therefore the present
volume is certain to receive at the hands of the general public
a still colder welcome than its two
predecessors have met with.In our day no statement can hope for a
fair trial or even hearing unless its arguments
run on the line of legitimate and accepted enquiry
remaining strictly within the boundaries of
official Science or orthodox Theology.
Our age is a paradoxical anomaly.It is
preëminently materialistic and as preëminently pietistic.Our
literature our modern thought and progress,so
called both run on these two parallel lines,so
incongruously dissimilar and yet both so
popular and so very orthodox,each in its own way.He who
presumes to draw a third line as a hyphen of
reconciliation between the two has to be fully prepared for
the worst.He will have his work mangled by
reviewers,mocked by the sycophants of Science and
Church misquoted by his opponents,and rejected
even by the pious lending libraries.The absurd
misconceptions,in so-called cultured circles
of society of the ancient Wisdom-Religion (Bodhism)after
the admirably clear and
scientifically-presented explanations in Esoteric B ddhism are a good
proof in
point.They might have served as a caution even
to those Theosophists who hardened in an almost life-
long struggle in the service of their Cause
are neither timid with their pen nor in the least appalled by
dogmatic (Page 2)assumption and scientific authority.Yet do what Theosophical
writers may neither
Materialism nor doctrinal pietism will ever
give their Philosophy a fair hearing.Their doctrines will be
systematically rejected and their theories
denied a place even in the ranks of those scientific ephemera
the ever-shifting "working
hypotheses"of our day.To the advocate of the "animalistic"theory
our
cosmogenetical and anthropogenetical teachings
are "fairy-tales"at best.For to those who would shirk
any moral responsibility it seems certainly
more convenient to accept descent from a common simian
ancestor and see a brother in a dumb tailless
baboon than to acknowledge the fatherhood of the Pitris,
the "Sons of God "and to have to
recognise as a brother a starveling from the slums.
"Hold back!"shout in their turn the
pietists."You will never make of respectable church-going Christians
Esoteric Buddhists!"
Nor are we in truth in any way anxious to
attempt the metamorphosis.But this cannot nor shall it
prevent Theosophists from saying what they
have to say especially to those who in opposing to our
doctrine Modern Science do so not for her own
fair sake but only to ensure the success of their private
hobbies and personal glorification.If we
cannot prove many of our points,no more can they;yet we may
show how instead of giving historical and
scientific facts -for the edification of those who knowing less
than they look to Scientists to do their
thinking and form their opinions -the efforts of most of our
scholars seem solely directed to killing
ancient facts,or distorting them into props to support their own
special views.This will be done in no spirit
of malice or even criticism as the writer readily admits that
most of those she finds fault with stand
immeasurably higher in learning than herself.But great
scholarship does not preclude bias and
prejudice nor is it a safeguard against self-conceit but rather the
Page 13.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
reverse.Moreover it is but in the legitimate
defence of our own statements,i.e.the vindication of Ancient
Wisdom and its great truths,that we mean to
take our "great authorities"to task.
Indeed unless the precaution of answering
beforehand certain objections to the fundamental
propositions in the present work be adopted
-objections which are certain to be made on the authority of
this,that or another scholar concerning the
Esoteric character of all the archaic and ancient works on
Philosophy -our statements will be once more
contradicted and even discredited.One of the main points
in this Volume is to indicate in the works of
the old Aryan Greek and
One Key to all Sacred Books -(Page 3)other Philosophers of note as well as in all
the world-scriptures,
the presence of a strong Esoteric allegory and
symbolism.Another of the objects is to prove that the key
of interpretation as furnished by the Eastern
Hindu-Buddhistic canon of Occultism -fitting as well the
Christian Gospels as it does archaic Egyptian
Greek,Chaldean Persian and even Hebrew -Mosaic
Books -must have been one common to all the
nations,however divergent may have been their
respective methods and exoteric
"blinds."These claims are vehemently denied by some of the foremost
scholars of our day.In his Edinburgh
Lectures,Prof.Max Muller discarded this fundamental statement of
the Theosophists by pointing to the Hindu
Shastras and Pandits,who know nothing of such Esotericism.
[ The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric
Philosophy now because they have lost the
key to it;yet not one of these if honest would
deny that the Upanishads and especially the P ranas are
allegorical and symbolical:nor that there
still remain in India a few great scholars who could if they
would give them the key to such
interpretations.Nor do they reject the actual existence of Mahâtmâs -
initiated Yogis and Adepts -even in this age
of Kali Yuga.] The learned
Sanskrit scholar stated in so
many words that there was no hidden meaning no
Esoteric element or "blinds,"either in the P rânas or
the Upanishads .Considering that the
word "Upanishad"means,when translated the "Secret
Doctrine."
the assertion is,to say the least
extraordinary.Sir M.Monier Williams again holds the same view with
regard to Buddhism.To hear him is to regard
Gautama the Buddha as an enemy of every pretence to
Esoteric teachings.He himself never taught
them!All such "pretences"to Occult learning and "magic
powers"are due to the later Arhats,the
subsequent followers of the "Light of Asia"!Prof.B.Jowett again
as contemptuously passes the sponge over the
"absurd"interpretations of Plato's Timae s and the
Mosaic Books by the Neoplatonists.There is not
a breath of the Oriental (Gnostic)spirit of Mysticism in
Plato's Dialog es the Regius Professor
of Greek tells us,nor any approach to Science either.Finally to
cap the climax,Prof.Sayce the Assyriologist
although he does not deny the actual presence in the
Assyrian tablets and cuneiform literature of a
hidden meaning -
"Many of the sacred texts ....so written
as to be intelligible only to the initiated"-
yet insists that the "keys and
glosses"thereof are now in the hands of the Assyriologists.The modern
scholars,he affirms,have in their possession
clues to the interpretation of the Esoteric Records.
"Which even the initiated priests [of
Chaldaea ] did not possess."
(Page 4)Thus,in the scholarly appreciation of our
modern Orientalists and Professors,Science was in its
infancy in the days of the Egyptian and
Chaldean Astronomers.Pânini the greatest Grammarian in the
world was unacquainted with the art of
writing.So was the Lord Buddha and everyone else in India until
300 B.C.The grossest ignorance reigned in the
days of the Indian Rishis,and even in those of Thales,
Pythagoras,and Plato.Theosophists must indeed
be superstitious ignoramuses to speak as they do in
Page 14.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
the face of such learned evidence to the
contrary!
Truly it looks as if since the world's
creation there has been but one age of real knowledge on earth -
the present age.In the misty twilight in the
grey dawn of history stand the pale shadows of the old
Sages of world renown.They were hopelessly
groping for the correct meaning of their own Mysteries,the
spirit whereof has departed without revealing
itself to the Hierophants,and has remained latent in space
until the advent of the initiates of Modern
Science and Research.The noontide brightness of knowledge
has only now arrived at the "Know-All
"who basking in the dazzling sun of induction busies himself with
his Penelopeian task of "working
hypotheses,"and loudly asserts his rights to universal knowledge.Can
anyone wonder then that according to present
views the learning of the ancient Philosopher and even
sometimes that of his direct successors in the
past centuries,has ever been useless to the world and
valueless to himself?For as explained
repeatedly in so many words,while the Rishis and the Sages of
old have walked far over the arid fields of
myth and superstition the mediaeval Scholar and even the
average eighteenth century Scientist have
always been more or less cramped by their "supernatural"
religion and beliefs.True it is generally
conceded that some ancient and also mediaeval Scholars,such
as Pythagoras,Plato Paracelsus,and Roger Bacon
followed by a host of glorious names,had indeed
left not a few landmarks over precious mines
of Philosophy and unexpected lodes of Physical Science.
But then the actual excavation of these the
smelting of the gold and silver and the cutting of the
precious jewels they contain are all due to
the patient labours of the modern man of Science.And it is
not to be the unparalleled genius of the
latter that the ignorant and hitherto-deluded world owes a correct
knowledge of the real nature of the Kosmos,of
the true origin of the universe and man as revealed in the
automatic and mechanical theories of the
Physicists in accordance with strictly scientific Philosophy?
Assumptions Have to be Proven -(Page 5)Before our cultured era Science was but a name
Philosophy a delusion and a snare.According to
the modest claims of contemporary authority on genuine
Science and Philosophy the Tree of Knowledge
has only now sprung from the dead weeds of
superstition as a beautiful butterfly emerges
from an ugly grub.We have therefore nothing for which to
thank our forefathers.The Ancients have at
best prepared and fertilised the soil;it is the Moderns who
have planted the seeds of knowledge and reared
the lovely plants called blank negation and sterile
agnosticism.
Such however is not the view taken by
Theosophists.They repeat what was stated twenty years ago.It
is not sufficient to speak of the
"untenable conceptions of an uncultured past"(Tyndall):of the "parler
enfantin "of the Vaidic poets (Max Muller);of the "absurdities"of
the Neoplatonists (Jowett);and of the
ignorance of the Chaldaeo-Assyrian initiated
Priests with regard to their own symbols,when compared
with the knowledge thereon of the British
Orientalist (Sayce).Such assumptions have to be proven by
something more solid than the mere word of
these scholars.For no amount of boastful arrogance can
hide the intellectual quarries out of which
the representations of so many modern Philosophers and
Scholars have been carved.How many of the most
distinguished European Scientists have derived
honour and credit for the mere dressing-up of
the ideas of these old Philosophers,whom they are ever
ready to disparage is left to an impartial
posterity to say.Thus it does seem not altogether untrue as
stated in Isis Unveiled to say of
certain Orientalists and Scholars of dead languages,that they will allow
their boundless conceit and
self-opinionatedness to run away with their logic and reasoning powers
rather than concede to the ancient
Philosophers the knowledge of anything the modern do not know.
As part of this work treats of the Initiates
and the secret knowledge imparted during the Mysteries,the
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statements of those who in spite of the fact
that Plato was an Initiate maintain that no hidden Mysticism
is to be discovered in his works,have to be
first examined.Too many of the present scholars,Greek and
Sanskrit are but too apt to forego facts in
favour of their own preconceived theories based on personal
prejudice.They conveniently forget at every
opportunity not only the numerous changes in language
but also that the allegorical style in the
writings of old Philosophers and the secretiveness of the Mystics
had their raison d'être ;that both the
pre-Christian and the post-Christian (Page 6)classical writers -the
great majority at all events -were under the
sacred obligation never to divulge the solemn secrets
communicated to them in the sanctuaries;and
that this alone is sufficient to sadly mislead their
translators and profane critics.But these
critics will admit nothing of the kind as will presently be seen.
For over twenty-two centuries everyone who has
read Plato has been aware that like most of the other
Greek Philosophers of note he had been
initiated;that therefore being tied down by the Sodalian Oath
he could speak of certain things only in
veiled allegories.His reverence for the Mysteries is unbounded;
he openly confesses that he writes
"enigmatically "and we see him take the greatest precautions to
conceal the true meaning of his words.Every
time the subject touches the greater secrets of Oriental
Wisdom -the cosmogony of the universe or the
ideal preexisting world -Plato shrouds his Philosophy in
the profoundest darkness.His Timaeus is so
confused that no one but an Initiate can understand the
hidden meaning As already said in Isis
Unveiled:
The speculations of Plato in the Banq et on
the creation or rather the evolution of primordial men and
the essay on cosmogony in the Timaeus,must be
taken allegorically if we accept them at all.It is this
hidden Pythagorean meaning in Timae s
Cratyl s and Parmenides and a few other triologies and
dialogues,that the Neoplatonists ventured to
expound as far as the theurgical vow of secresy would
allow them.The Pythagoran doctrine that God is
the Universal Mind diffused through all things,and the
dogma of the soul's immortality are the
leading features in these apparently incongruous teachings.His
piety and the great veneration he felt for the
Mysteries are sufficient warrant that Plato would not allow
his indiscretion to get the better of that
deep sense of responsibility which is felt by every Adept.
"Constantly perfecting himself in perfect
Mysteries a man in them alone becomes truly perfect "says he
in the Phaedrus .
He took no pains to conceal his displeasure
that the Mysteries had become less secret than formerly.
Instead of profaning them by putting them
within the reach of the multitude he would have guarded them
with jealous care against all but the most
earnest and worthy of his disciples.[ This
assertion is clearly
corroborated by Plato himself who
writes:"You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently
explained to you the nature of the First.I
purposely spoke enigmatically that in case the tablet should
have happened with any accident either by sea
or land a person without some previous knowledge of
the subject might not be able to understand
its contents."(Plato.Ep.II.312 Cory.Ancient Fragments.
p.304 ]
While mentioning the Gods on every page his monotheism is unquestionable
for the whole
thread of his discourse indicates that by the
term "God"he means a class of beings lower in the scale
than Deities,and but one grade higher than
men.Even Josephus perceived and acknowledged this fact
despite the natural prejudice of his race.
The Spirit of Plato's Teaching -(Page 7)In his famous onslaught upon Apion this
historian says;"Those
however among the Greeks who philosophized in
accordance with truth were not ignorant of anything ..
.nor did they fail to perceive the chilling
superficialities of the mythical allegories,on which account they
justly despised them....By which thing Plato
being moved says it is not necessary to admit any one of
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the other poets into ‘the Commonwealth 'and he
dismisses Homer blandly after having crowned him and
pouring unguent upon him in order that indeed
he should not destroy by his myths the orthodox belief in
respecting one God."[
And this is the "God"of every
Philosopher God infinite and impersonal.All this and much more which
there is no room here to quote leads one to
the undeniable certitude that (a )as all the Sciences and
Philosophies were in the hands of the temple
Hierophants Plato as initiated by them must have known
them;and (b),that logical inference alone is
amply sufficient to justify anyone in regarding Plato's writings
as allegories and "dark
sayings,"veiling truths which he had no right to divulge.
This established how comes it that one of the
best Greek scholars in
translator of Plato's works seeks to
demonstrate that none of the Dialogues -including even the
Timae s -have
any element of Oriental Mysticism about them?Those who can discern the true
spirit of
Plato's Philosophy will hardly be convinced by
the arguments which the Master of
before his readers."Obscure and
repulsive"to him,the Timae s may certainly be;but it is as certain
that
this obscurity does not arise as the Professor
tells his public,"in the infancy of physical science "but
rather in its days of secresy;not "out of
the confusion of theological mathematical and physiological
notions,"or "out of the desire to
conceive the whole of Nature without any adequate knowledge of the
parts."[ The Dialog es of Plato translated by B.Jowett.Regius
Professor of Greek at the University of
"Theology "and the physiological
notions of the ancient Sages are being daily verified by Science in our
age;at least to those who know to read and
understand ancient Esoteric works.The "knowledge of the
parts"avails us little if this knowledge
only leads us the more to ignorance of the Whole or the "nature
and the reason of the Universal "as Plato
called Deity and causes us to blunder most egregiously
because of our boasted inductive methods.
(Page 8)Plato may have been "incapable of
induction or generalization in the modern sense";[ Op.cit.
p.561 ]
he may have been ignorant also of the circulation of the blood which we
are told "was
absolutely unknown to him,"[ Op.cit.p.591 ]but then there is naught to disprove that he knew what
blood is -and this is more than any Physiologist
or Biologist can claim nowadays.
Though a wider and far more generous margin
for knowledge is allowed the "physical philosopher"by
Prof.Jowett than by nearly any other modern
commentator and critic,nevertheless,his criticism so
considerably outweighs his laudation that it
may be as well to quote his own words,to show clearly his
bias.Thus he says:
To bring sense under the control of reason;to
find some way through the labyrinth or chaos of
appearances,either the highway or
mathematics,or more devious paths suggested by the
analogy of man with the world and of the world
with man;to see that all things have a cause
and are tending towards an end -this is the
spirit of the ancient physical philosopher.[This
definition places (unwittingly of course),the
ancient "physical philosopher"many cubits higher
than his modern "physical"confrère
since the ltima th le of the latter is to lead mankind to
believe that neither universe nor man have any
cause at all -not an intelligent one at all
events -and that they have sprung into
existence owing to blind chance and a senseless
whirling of atoms.Which of the two hypotheses
is the more rational and logical is left to the
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impartial reader to decide.] But we neither appreciate the
conditions of knowledge to which he
was subjected nor have the ideas which
fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon
us.For he is hovering between matter and
mind;he is under the dominion of abstractions;his
impressions are taken almost at random from
the outside of nature;he sees the light but not
the objects which are revealed by the
light;and he brings into juxtaposition things which to us
appear wide as the poles asunder because he
finds nothing between them.
The last proposition but one must evidently be
distasteful to the modern "physical philosopher "who sees
the "objects"before him but fails to
see the light of the Universal Mind which reveals them i.e .who
proceeds in a diametrically opposite
way.Therefore the learned Professor comes to the conclusion that
the ancient Philosopher whom he now judges
from Plato's Timae s must have acted in a decidedly
unphilosophical and even irrational way.For:
He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and
numbers,and from ideas and numbers to
persons;[ Italics are mine.Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy every Kabalist
will see the
reason for such an association of persons with
ideas,numbers,and geometrical figures.For
number says Philolaus,"is the dominant
and self-produced bond of the eternal continuance of
things."Alone the modern scholar remains
blind to the grand truth ] he
confuses subject and
object first and final causes,and
in dreaming of geometrical figures is lost in a flux of sense.
Self-Contradiction of the Critic -(Page 9)[ Here again the
ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of
the modern.For he only "confuses ...first
and final causes"(which confusion is denied by those who
know the spirit of the ancient
scholarship),whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely
ignorant of both.Mr.Tyndall shows Science
"powerless"to solve a single one of the final problems of
Nature and "disciplined [read modern
materialistic ] ,imagination
retiring in bewilderment from the
contemplation of the problems "of the
world of matter.He even doubts whether the men of present
Science possess "the intellectual
elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate
structural energies of Nature."But for
Plato and his disciples,the lower types were but the concrete
images of the higher abstract ones:the higher
abstract ones:the immortal Soul has an arithmetical as
the body has a geometrical beginning.This
beginning as the reflection of the great universal archaeus
(Anima Mundi ),is self-moving and from
the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.]
And now an effort of mind is required on our
parts in order to nderstand his do ble lang age or to
apprehend the twilight character of the
knowledge and the genius of ancient philosophers which under
such conditions [?] seems by a divine power in
many instances to have anticipated the truth.[ Op.cit.
page 523 .]
Whether "such conditions"imply those
of ignorance and mental stolidity in "the genius of ancient
philosophers"or something else we do not
know.But what we do know is that the meaning of the
sentences we have italicized is perfectly
clear.Whether the Regius Professor of Greek believes or
disbelieves in a hidden sense of geometrical
figures and of the Esoteric "jargon "he nevertheless admits
the presence of a "double
language"in the writings of these Philosophers.Thence he admits a hidden
meaning which must have had an
interpretation.Why then does he flatly contradict his own statement
on the very next page?And why should he deny
to the Timae s -that preëminently Pythagorean (mystic)
Dialogue -any Occult meaning and take such
pains to convince his readers that
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The influence which the Timaeus has exercised
upon posterity is partly due to a
misunderstanding.
The following quotation from his Introduction
is in direct contradiction with the paragraph which precedes
it as above quoted:
In the supposed depths of this dialogue the
Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and
connections with the Jewish and Christian
Scriptures,and out of them they dictated doctrines
quite at variance with the spirit of
Plato.Believing that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost or
had received his wisdom from Moses,[ Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty
of such an
absurdity.The learned Professor of Greek must
have been thinking of two spurious works
attributed by Eusebius and St.Jerome to
Ammonius Saccas,who wrote nothing:or must have
confused the Neoplatonists with Philo
Judaeus.But then Philo lived over 130 years before the
birth of the founder of Neoplatonism.He
belonged to the School of Aristobulus the Jew who
lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years
B.C),and is credited with having inaugurated the
movement which tended to prove that Plato and
even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived
from the "revealed"Mosaic
Books.Valckenaer tries to show that the author of the
Commentaries on the Books of Moses was not Aristobulus,the sycophant of Ptolemy.But
whatever he was he was not a Neoplatonist but
lived before or during the days of Philo
Judaeus -since the latter seems to know his
works and follow his methods.](Page 10)they
seemed to find in his writings the Christian
Trinity the Word the Church ...and the Neo-
Platonists had a method of interpretation
which could elicit any meaning out of any words.
They were really incapable of distinguishing
between the opinions of one philosopher and
another or between the serious thoughts of
Plato and his passing fancies.[Only
Clemens
Alexandrinus,a Christian Neoplatonist and a
very fantastic writer.]...[But ]
there is no danger
of the modern commentators on the Timae s falling
into the absurdity of the Neo-Platonists.
No danger whatever of course for the simple
reason that the modern commentators have never had the
key to Occult interpretations.And before
another word is said in defence of Plato and the Neoplatonists,
the learned master of Balliol College ought to
be respectfully asked:What does,or can he know of the
Esoteric canon of interpretation?By the term
"canon"is here meant that key which was communicated
orally from "mouth to ear"by the
Master to the disciple or by the Hierophant to the candidate for
initiation;this from time immemorial
throughout a long series of ages,during which the inner -not public -
Mysteries were the most sacred institution of
every land.Without such a key no correct interpretation of
either the Dialog es of Plato nor of
any Scripture from the Vedas to Homer from the Zend Avesta to the
Mosaic Books,is possible.How then can the
Rev.Dr.Jowett know that the interpretations made by the
Neoplatonists of the various sacred books of
the nations were "absurdities"?Where again has he found
an opportunity of studying these
"interpretations"?History shows that all such works were destroyed by
the Christian Church Fathers and their
fanatical catechumens,wherever they were found.To say that
such men as Ammonius,a genius and a saint
whose learning and holy life earned for him the title of
Theodidaktos ("God-taught"),such men
as Plotinus,Porphyry and Proclus,were "incapable of
distinguishing between the opinions of one
philosopher and another or between the serious thoughts of
Plato and his fancies,"is to assume an
untenable position for a Scholar.It amounts to saying that (a)
scores of the most famous Philosophers,the
greatest Scholars and Sages of Greece and of the Roman
Empire were dull fools,and (b)that all the
other commentators,lovers of Greek Philosophy some of
them the acutest intellects of the age -who do
not agree with Dr.Jowett -are also fools and no better
than those whom they admire.The patronising
tone of the last above-quoted passage is modulated with
the most naive conceit remarkable even
in our age of self-glorification and mutual admiration cliques.
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The Character of Ammonius Saccas -(Page 11)We have to compare the Professor's views with
those
of some other scholars.
Says Prof.Alexander Wilder of New York,one of
the best Platonists of the day speaking of Ammonius,
the founder of the Neoplatonic School:
His deep spiritual intuition his extensive
learning his familiarity with the Christian Fathers,
Pantaenus,Clement and Athenagoras,and with the
most erudite philosophers of the time all
fitted him for the labour which he performed
so thoroughly.[The labour of
reconciling the
different systems of religion.] He was successful in drawing to his
views the greatest scholars
and public men of the Roman Empire who had
little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits
or superstitious observances.The results of
his ministration are perceptible at the present day
in every country of the Christian world;every
prominent system of doctrine now bearing the
marks of his plastic hand.Every ancient
philosophy has had its votaries among the moderns;
and even Judaism ...has taken upon itself
changes which were suggested by the "God-
taught"Alexandrian ...He was a man of
rare learning and endowments,of blameless life and
amiable disposition.His almost superhuman ken
and many excellencies won for him the title
of Theodidaktos;but he followed the modest
example of Pythagoras,and only assumed the
title of Philalethian or lover of truth.[ New Platonism and Alchemy by
Alex.Wilder M.D.pp.
7.4.]
It would be happy for truth and fact were our
modern scholars to follow as modestly in the steps of their
great predecessors.But not they
-Philalethians!
Moreover we know that:
Like Orpheus,Pythagoras,Confucius,Socrates,and
Jesus himself [ It is well-known
that
though born of Christian parents,Ammonius had
renounced the tenets of the Church -
Eusebius and Jerome notwithstanding.Porphyry
the disciple of Plotinus,who had lived with
Ammonius for eleven years together and who had
no interest in stating an untruth positively
declares that he had renounced Christianity
entirely.On the other hand we know that
Ammonius believed in the bright
Gods,Protectors,and that the Neoplatonic Philosophy was
as "pagan"as it was mystical.But
Eusebius,the most unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old
texts and St.Jerome an out-and-out fanatic,who
had both an interest in denying the fact
contradict Porphyry.We prefer to believe the
latter who has left to posterity an unblemished
name and a great reputation for honesty .] Ammonius committed nothing to
writing.[ Two
works are falsely attributed to Ammonius.One
now lost called De Consensu Moysis et Jes
is mentioned by the same
"trustworthy"Eusebius,the Bishop of Caesaraea and the friend of
the Christian Emperor Constantine who died
however a heathen.All that is known of this
pseudo-work is that Jerome bestows great
praise upon it (Vir.Ill st .55:and Euseb.H.E ..
vi.19).The other spurious production is called
the Diatesseron (or the "Harmony of the
Gospels").This is partially extant.But
then again it exists only in the Latin version of Victor
Bishop of Capua (sixth century),who attributed
it himself to Tatian and as wrongly probably
as later scholars attributed the Diatesseron
to Ammonius.Therefore no great reliance can be
placed upon it nor on its
"esoteric"interpretation of the Gospels.Is it this work we wonder
which led Prof.Jowett to regard the
Neoplatonic interpretations as "absurdities"?] Instead
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he ...communicated his most (Page 12)important doctrines to persons duly instructed
and
disciplined imposing on them the obligations
of secresy as was done before him by Zoroaster
and Pythagoras,and in the Mysteries.Except a
few treatises of his disciples we have only the
declarations of his adversaries from which to
ascertain what he actually taught.[Op.cit
.p.7.]
It is from the biased statements of such
"adversaries."probably that the learned Oxford translator of
Plato's Dialogues came to the conclusion that:
That which was truly great and truly
characteristic of him [Plato ] his effort to realise and
connect abstractions,was not nderstood by
them [the Neoplatonists ] at all [?].
He states,contemptuously enough for the
ancient methods of intellectual analysis,that:
In the present day ...an ancient philosopher
is to be interpreted from himself and by the
contemporary history of thought.[ Op.cit .iii 524 .]
This is like saying that the ancient Greek
canon of proportion (if ever found),and the Athena Promachus
of Phidias,have to be interpreted in the
present day from the contemporary history of architecture and
sculpture from the Albert Hall and Memorial
Monument and the hideous Madonnas in crinolines
sprinkled over the fair face of
Italy.Prof.Jowett remarks that "mysticism is not criticism."No;but
neither
is criticism always fair and sound judgement.
La critiq e est aisée,mais l'art est difficile.
And such "art"our critic of the
Neoplatonists -his Greek scholarship notwithstanding -lacks from a to z
.
Nor has he very evidently the key to the true
spirit of the Mysticism of Pythagoras and Plato since he
denies even in the Timae s an element
of Oriental Mysticism and seeks to show Greek Philosophy
reacting upon the East forgetting that the
truth is the exact reverse;that it is "the deeper and more
pervading spirit of Orientalism"that had
-through Pythagoras and his own initiation into the Mysteries -
penetrated into the very depths of Plato's
soul.
But Dr.Jowett does not see this.Nor is he
prepared to admit that anything good or rational -in
accordance with the "contemporary history
of thought"-could ever come out of that Nazareth of the
Pagan Mysteries;nor even that there is
anything to interpret of a hidden nature in the Timae s or any
other Dialogue.For him,
The so-called mysticism of Plato is purely
Greek,arising out of his imperfect knowledge
[ "Imperfect knowledge"of what?That Plato was
ignorant of many of the modern ‘working
hypotheses"-as ignorant as our immediate
posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses
when they in their turn after exploding join
the "great majority"-is perhaps a blessing in
disguise .] and high aspirations,and is the growth of an age in which
philosophy is not wholly
separated from poetry and mythology.[ Op.cit .p.524 .]
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Plato a Follower of Pythagoras -(Page 13)Among several other equally erroneous
propositions,it is
especially the assumptions (a)that Plato was
entirely free from any element of Eastern Philosophy in his
writings,and (b)that every modern scholar
without being a Mystic and a Kabalist himself can pretend to
judge of ancient Esotericism -which we mean to
combat.To do this we have to produce more
authoritative statements than our own would be
and bring the evidence of other scholars as great as Dr.
Jowett if not greater specialists in their
subjects,moreover to bear on and destroy the arguments of the
Oxford Regius Professor of Greek.
That Plato was undeniably an ardent admirer
and follower of Pythagoras no one will deny.And it is
equally undeniable as Matter has it that Plato
had inherited on the one hand his doctrines,and on the
other had drawn his wisdom from the same
sources as the Samian Philosopher.[ I'Histoire
Critiq e d
Gnosticisme by M.J.Matter Professor of the Royal Academy of Strasburg."It
is in Pythagoras and Plato
that we find in Greece the first elements of
[Oriental ] Gnosticism."he says.(Vol.i.pp.48 and 50.)] And
the doctrines of Pythagoras are Oriental to
the backbone and even Brâhmanical;for this great
Philosopher ever pointed to the far East as
the source whence he derived his information and his
Philosophy and Colebrooke shows that Plato
makes the same profession in his Epistles,and says that
he has taken his teachings "from ancient
and sacred doctrines."[Asiat.Trans
.i.579.] Furthermore the
ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato coincide
too well with the systems of India and with Zoroastrianism to
admit any doubt of their origin by anyone who
has some acquaintance with these systems.Again:
Pantaenus,Athenagoras,and Clement were
thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy
and comprehended its essential unity
with the Oriental systems.[ New
Platonism and
Alchemy .p.4.]
The history of Pantaenus and his
contemporaries may give the key to the Platonic,and at the same time
Oriental elements that predominate so
strikingly in the Gospels over the Jewish Scriptures.
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SECTION I
Preliminary Survey
(Page 14)INITIATES who have acquired powers and
transcendental knowledge can be traced back to the
Fourth Root Race from our own age.As the
multiplicity of the subjects to be dealt with prohibits the
introduction of such a historical chapter
which however historical in fact and truth would be rejected a
priori as
blasphemy and fable by both Church and Science -we shall only touch on the
subject.Science
strikes out at its own sweet will and fancy
dozens of names of ancient heroes,simply because there is
too great an element of myth in their
histories;the Church insists that biblical patriarchs shall be regarded
as historical personages,and terms her seven
"Star-angels"the "historical channels and agents of the
Creator."Both are right since each finds
a strong party to side with it.Mankind is at best a sorry herd of
Panurgian sheep following blindly the leader
that happens to suit it at the moment.Mankind -the
majority at any rate -hates to think for
itself.It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a
moment outside the old well-beaten tracks,and
judging for itself to enter into a new path in some fresh
direction.Give it an unfamiliar problem to
solve and if its mathematicians,not liking its looks,refuse to
deal with it the crowd unfamiliar with
mathematics,will stare at the unknown quantity and getting
hopelessly entangled in sundry x 's and
y 's,will turn round trying to rend to pieces the uninvited disturber
of its intellectual Nirvana.This may perhaps,account
for the ease and extraordinary success enjoyed by
the Roman Church in her conversions of nominal
Protestants and Free-thinkers,whose name is legion
but who have never gone to the trouble of
thinking for themselves on these most important and
tremendous problems of man's inner nature.
And yet if the evidence of facts,the records
preserved in History and the uninterrupted anathemas of
the Church against "Black Magic"and
Magicians of the accursed race of Cain are not to be heeded our
efforts will prove very puny indeed.When for
nearly two millenniums a body of men has never ceased to
lift its voice against Black Magic,the
inference ought to be irrefutable that if Black Magic exists as a real
fact there must be somewhere its counterpart -White
Magic.
The Protectors of China -(Page 15)False silver coins could have no existence if
there were no genuine
silver money.Nature is dual in whatever she
attempts,and this ecclesiastical persecution ought alone to
have opened the eyes of the public long ago.However
much travellers may be ready to pervert every
fact with regard to abnormal powers with which
certain men are gifted in "heathen"countries;however
eager they may be to put false constructions
on such facts,and -to use an old proverb -"to call white
swan black goose "and to kill it yet the
evidence of even Roman Catholic missionaries ought to be taken
into consideration once they swear in a body
to certain facts.Nor is it because they choose to see
Satanic agency in manifestations of a certain
kind that their evidence as to the existence of such powers
can be disregarded.For what do they say of
China?Those missionaries who have lived in the country for
long years,and have seriously studied every
fact and belief that may prove an obstacle to their success
in making conversions,and who have become
familiar with every exoteric rite of both the official religion
and sectarian creeds -all swear to the
existence of a certain body of men whom no one can reach but
the Emperor and a select body of high officials.A
few years ago before the war in Tonkin the archbishop
in Pekin on the report of some hundreds of
missionaries and Christians,wrote to Rome the identical
story that had been reported twenty-five years
before and had been widely circulated in clerical papers.
They had fathomed it was said the mystery of
certain official deputations,sent at times of danger by the
Emperor and ruling powers to their Sheu and
Kiuay as they are called among the people.These Sheu
and Kiuay they explained were the Genii of the
mountains,endowed with the most miraculous powers.
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They are regarded as the protectors of China by
the "ignorant"masses;as the incarnation of Satanic
power by the good and
"learned"missionaries.
The Sheu and Kiuay are men belonging to
another state of being to that of the ordinary man
or to the state they enjoyed while they were
clad in their bodies.They are disembodied spirits,
ghosts and larvae living nevertheless,in
objective form on earth and dwelling in the
fastnesses of mountains,inaccessible to all
but those whom they permit to visit them.[ This
fact and others may be found in Chinese
Missionary Reports and in a work by Monseigneur
Delaplace a Bishop in China."Annales
de la Propagation de la Foi ".]
(Page 16)In Tibet certain ascetics are also called Lha
Spirits by those with whom they do not choose to
communicate.The Sheu and Kiuay who enjoy the
highest consideration of the Emperor and
Philosophers,and of Confucianists who believe
in no "Spirits "are simply Lohans -Adepts who live in the
greatest solitude in their unknown retreats.
But both Chinese exclusiveness and Nature seem
to have allied themselves against European curiosity
and -as it is sincerely regarded in Tibet
-desecration.Marco Polo the famous traveller was perhaps the
European who ventured farthest into the
interior of these countries.What was said of him in 1876 may
now be repeated.
The district of the Gobi wilderness,and in
fact the whole area of Independent Tartary and
Tibet is carefully guarded against foreign
intrusion.Those who are permitted to traverse it are
under the particular care and pilotage of certain
agents of the chief authority and are in duty
bound to convey no intelligence respecting
places and persons to the outside world.But for
this restriction many might contribute to
these pages accounts of exploration adventure and
discovery that would be read with interest.The
time will come sooner or later when the
dreadful sand of the desert will yield up its
long-buried secrets,and then there will indeed be
unlooked-for mortifications for our modern
vanity.
"The people of Pashai "[ The regions somewhere about Udyana
and Kashmir as the
translator and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel
Yule)believes (i.x75).] says
Marco Polo the
daring traveller of the thirteenth century
"are great adepts in sorceries and the diabolic arts."
And his learned editor adds:"This Paschai
or Udyana was the native country of Padma
Sambhava one of the chief apostles of Lamaism i.e
.of Tibetan Buddhism and a great
master of enchantments.The doctrines of Sakya
as they prevailed in Udyana in old times
were probably strongly tinged with Sivaitic
magic,and the Tibetans still regard the locality as
the classic ground of sorcery and
witchcraft."
The "old times"are just like the
"modern times";nothing is changed as to magical practices
except that they have become still more
esoteric and arcane and that the caution of the
adepts increases in proportion to the
traveller's curiosity.Hiouen-Thsang says of the
inhabitants:"The men ...are fond of study
but pursue it with no ardour.The science of
magical form lae has become a reg lar
professional b siness with them."[Voyage des
Pèlerins Bouddhistes.Vol.1..Histoire de la
Vie de Hio en-Thsang etc.traduit du chinois en
francais,par Stanislas Julien .]We will not contract the venerable
Chinese pilgrim on this point
and are willing to admit that in the seventh
century some people made "a professional
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business:of magic,so also do some people
now but certainly not the true adepts.
Moreoever in that century Buddhism had hardly
penetrated into Tibet and its races were
steeped in the sorceries of the Bhon -the
pre-lamaic religion.It is not Hiouen-Thsang the
pious,courageous man who risked his life a
hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving
Buddh's shadown in the cave of Peshwur who
would have accused the good lamas and
monkish thaumaturgists of "making a
professional business"of showing it to travellers.
The A.B.C.Of Magic -
(Page 17)The injunction of Gautama contained in his
answer to King Prasenajit his protector
who called on him to perform miracles,must
have been ever-present to the mind of Hiouen-
Thsang."Great king "said Gautama
"I do not teach the law to my pupils,telling them ‘Go ye
saints and before the eyes of the Brahmans and
householders perform by means of your
supernatural powers miracles greater than any
man can perform.'I tell them when I teach
them the law ‘Live ye saints,hiding yo r good
works,and showing yo r sins .'"
Struck with the accounts of magical
exhibitions witnessed and recorded by travellers of every
age who had visited Tartary and Tibet Colonel
Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives
must have had "at their command the whole
encyclopaedia of modern Spiritualists."Duhalde
mentions among their sorceries the art of
producing by their invocations the figures of Laotseu
[ Lao-tse the Chinese philosopher.] and their divinities in the air and of making a pencil
write
answers to q estions witho t anybody to
ching it ."[T he Book of Ser Marco Polo i.3x8.]
The former invocations pertain to the
religious mysteries of their sanctuaries;if done
otherwise or for the sake of gain they
are considered sorcery necromancy and strictly
forbidden.The latter art that of making a
pencil write without contact was known and
practised in China and other countries before
the Christian era.It is the A B C of magic in
those countries.
When Hiouen-Thsang desired to adore the shadow
of Buddha it was not to "professional
magicians"that he resorted but to the
power of his own soul-invocation;the power of prayer
faith and contemplation.All was dark and
dreary near the cavern in which the miracle was
alleged to sometimes take place.Hiouen-Thsang
entered and began his devotions.He made
one hundred salutations,but neither saw nor
heard anything.Then thinking himself too sinful
he cried bitterly and despaired.But as he was
about to give up all hope he perceived on the
eastern wall a feeble light but it
disappeared.He renewed his prayers,full of hope this time
and again he saw the light which flashed and
disappeared again.After this he made a solemn
vow:he would not leave the cave till he had
the rapture to at last see the shadow of the
"Venerable of the Age."He had to
wait longer after this,for only after two hundred prayers was
the dark cave suddenly "bathed in light
and the shadow of Buddha of a brilliant white colour
rose majestically on the wall as when the
clouds suddenly open and all at once display the
marvellous image of the ‘Mountain of Light.'A
dazzling splendour lighted up the features of the
divine countenance.Hiouen-Thsang was lost in
contemplation and wonder and would not turn
his eyes away from the sublime and
incomparable object."Hiouen-Thsang adds in his own
diary See-yu-kee,that it is only when
man prays with sincere faith and if he has received
from above a hidden impression that he sees
the shadow clearly but he cannot enjoy the
sight for any length of time (Max Muller B
ddhist Pilgrims.)
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From one end to the other the country is full
of mystics,religious philosophers,Buddhist saints
and magicians.Belief in a spiritual world full
of invisible beings who on certain occasions,
appear to mortals objectively is
universal."According (Page 18)to the belief of the nations of
Central Asia "remarks I.J.Schmidt
"the earth and its interior as well as the encompassing
atmosphere are filled with spiritual
beings,which exercise an influence partly beneficent
partly malignant on the whole of organic and
inorganic nature....Especially are deserts and
other wild and uninhabited tracts,or regions
in which the influences of nature are displayed on
a gigantic and terrible scale regarded as the
chief abode or rendez-vo s of evil spirits.And
hence the steppes of Turan and in particular
the great sand desert of the Gobi have been
looked on as the dwelling place of malignant
beings,from the days of hoary antiquity."
The treasures exhumed by Dr.Schliemann at
Mycenae have awakened popular cupidity and
the eyes of adventurous speculators are being
turned toward the localities where the wealth of
ancient peoples is supposed to be buried in
crypt or cave or beneath sand or alluvial deposit.
Around no other locality not even Peru hang so
many traditions as around the Gobi Desert.In
independent Tartary this howling waste of
shifting sand was once if report speaks correctly
the seat of one of the richest empires the
world ever saw.Beneath the surface is said to lie
such wealth in gold jewels,statuary
arms,utensils,and all that indicates civilization luxury
and fine arts as no existing capital of
Christendom can show today.The Gobi sand moves
regularly from east to west before terrific
gales that blow continually.Occasionally some of the
hidden treasures are uncovered but not a
native dare touch them,for the whole district is
under the ban of a mighty spell.Death would be
the penalty.Bahti -hideous,but faithful
gnomes -guard the hidden treasures of this
prehistoric people awaiting the day when the
revolution of cyclic periods shall again cause
their story to be known for the instruction of
mankind.[ Isis Unveiled i.599-601 603 598.]
The above is purposely quoted from Isis
Unveiled to refresh the reader's memory.One of the cyclic
periods has just been passed and we may not
have to wait to the end of Maha Kalpa to have revealed
something of the history of the mysterious
desert in spite of the Bahti and even the Rakshasas of India
not less "hideous."No tales or
fictions were given in our earlier volumes,their chaotic state
notwithstanding to which chaos the writer
entirely free from vanity confesses publicly and with many
apologies.
It is now generally admitted that from time
immemorial the distant East India especially was the land of
knowledge and of every kind of learning.Yet
there is none to whom the origin of all her Arts and Sciences
has been so much denied as to the land of the
primitive Aryas.From Architecture down to the Zodiac,
every Science worthy of the name was imported
by the Greeks,the mysterious Yavanas -agreeably with
the decision of the Orientalists!Therefore it
is but logical that even the knowledge of Occult Science
should be refused to India since of its
general practice in that country less is known than in the case of
any other ancient people.
Magic As Old As Man -(Page 19)It is so simply because:
With the Hindus it was,and is,more esoteric,if
possible than it was even among the Egyptian
priests.So sacred was it deemed that its
existence was only half admitted and it was only
practised in public emergencies.It was more
than a religio s matter,for it was [and is still ]
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considered divine .The Egyptian hierophants,notwithstanding the practice of a
stern and pure
morality could not be compared for one moment
with the ascetical Gymnosophists,either in
holiness of life or miraculous powers
developed in them by the supernatural abjuration of
everything earthly.By those who knew them well
they were held in still greater reverence than
the magians of Chaldaea."Denying
themselves the simplest comforts of life they dwelt in
woods,and led the life of the most secluded
hermits,"[ Ammianus
Marcellinus,xxiii.6 .] while
their Egyptian brothers at least congregated
together.Notwithstanding the slur thrown on all
who practised magic and divination history has
proclaimed them as possessing the greatest
secrets in medical knowledge and unsurpassed
skill in its practice.Numerous are the volumes
preserved in Hindu Mathams,in which are
recorded the proofs of their learning.To attempt to
say whether these Gymnosophists were the real
founders of magic in India or whether they
only practised what has passed to them as an
inheritance from the earliest Rishis [The
Rishis
-the first group of seven in number lived in
days preceding the Vedic period.They are now
known as Sages and held in reverence like
demigods.But they may now be shown as
something more than merely mortal
Philosophers.There are other groups of ten twelve and
even twenty-one in number.Haug shows that they
occupy in the Brahmanical religion a
position answering to that of the twelve sons
of Jacob in the Jewish Bible The Brahmans claim
to descend directly from the Rishis.] -the seven primeval sages -would be
regarded as mere
speculation by exact scholars.[ Isis Unveiled i.90 .]
Nevertheless,this must be attempted.In Isis
Unveiled all that could be stated about Magic was set down
in the guise of hints;and thus,owing to the
great amount of material scattered over two large volumes,
much of its importance was lost upon the
reader while it still more failed to draw his attention on account
of the faulty arrangement.But hints may now
grow into explanations.One can never repeat it too often -
Magic is as old as man .It cannot any longer be called charlantry or hallucination
when its lesser
branches -such as mesmerism now miscalled
"hypnotism ""thought reading ""action by suggestion
"
and what not else only to avoid calling it by
its right and legitimate name -are being so seriously
investigated by the most famous Biologists and
Physiologists of both Europe and America.Magic is
indissolubly blended with Religion of every
country and is (Page
20)inseparable
from its origin.It is as
impossible for History to name the time when
it was not as that of the epoch when it sprang into
existence unless the doctrines preserved by
the Initiates are taken into consideration.Nor can Science
ever solve the problem of the origin of man if
it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world
and refuses from the hand of the legitimate
Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the key to Universal
Symbology.Whenever a writer has tried to
connect the first foundation of Magic with a particular country
or some historical event or character further
research has shown his hypothesis to be groundless.There
is a most lamentable contradiction among the
Symbologists on this point.Some would have it that Odin
the Scandinavian priest and monarch originated
the practice of Magic some 70 years B.C..although it is
spoken of repeatedly in the Bible.But as it
was proven that the mysterious rites of the priestesses Valas
(Voilers)were greatly anterior to Odin's age [See Munter "On the most Ancient
Religions of the North
before Odin.'Mémoires de la Société des
Antiquaires de France.ii.230.] then
Zoroaster came in for an
attempt on the ground that he was the founder
of Magian rites;but Ammianus Marcellinus,Pliny and
Arnobius,with other ancient Historians,have
shown that Zoroaster was but a reformer of Magic as
practised by the Chaldaeans and Egyptians,and
not at all its founder.[ Ammianus
Marcellinus,xxvi.6.]
Who then of those who have consistently turned
their faces away from Occultism and even Spiritualism
as being "unphilosophical"and
therefore unworthy of scientific thought has a right to say that he has
studied the ancients;or that if he has studied
them,he has understood all they have said?Only those
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who claim to be wiser than their generation
who think that they know all that the Ancients knew and
thus,knowing far more today fancy that they
are entitled to laugh at their ancient simple-mindedness
and superstition;those who imagine they have
discovered a great secret by declaring the ancient royal
sarcophagus,now empty of its King Initiate to
be a "corn-bin "and the Pyramid that contained it a
granary perhaps a wine-cellar!["The date of the hundreds of
pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is
impossible to fix by any of the rules of
modern science:Herodotus informs us that each successive king
erected one to commemorate his reign and serve
as his sepulchre.But Herodotus did not tell all
although he knew that the real purpose of the
pyramid was very different from that which he assigns to it.
Were it not for his religious scruples,he
might have added that externally it symbolized the creative
principle of Nature and illustrated also the
principles of geometry mathematics,astrology and
astronomy .]
The Tree of Knowledge -(Page 21)Modern society on the authority of some men of Science calls
Magic
charlatantry.But there are eight hundred
millions on the face of the globe who believe in it to this day;
there are said to be twenty millions of
perfectly sane and often very intelligent men and woman members
of that same society who believe in its
phenomena under the name of Spiritualism.The whole ancient
world with its Scholars and Philosophers,its
Sages and Prophets,believed in it.Where is the country in
which it was not practised?At what age was it
banished even from our own country?In the New World
as in the Old Country (the latter far younger
than the former),the Science of Sciences was known and
practised from the remotest antiquity.The
Mexicans had their Initiates,their Priest-Hierophants and
Magicians,and their crypts of Initiation.Of
the two statues exhumed in the Pacific States,one represents
a Mexican Adept in the posture prescribed for
the Hindu ascetic,and the other an Aztec Priestess,in a
head-gear which might be taken from the head
of an Indian Goddess;while the "Guatemalan Medal"
exhibits the "Tree of
Knowledge"-with its hundreds of eyes and ears,symbolical of seeing and
hearing -
encircled by the "Serpent of
Wisdom"whispering into the ear of the sacred bird.)Bernard Diaz de
Castilla a follower of Cortez,gives some idea
of the extraordinary refinement intelligence and
civilization and also of the magic arts of the
people whom the Spaniards conquered by brute force.Their
pyramid are those of Egypt built according to
the same secret canon of proportion as those of the
Pharaohs,and the Aztecs appear to have derived
their civilization and religion in more than one way from
the same source as the Egyptians and before
these the Indians.Among all these three peoples arcane
Natural Philosophy or Magic,was cultivated to
the highest degree.
That it was natural not supernatural and that
the Ancients so regarded it is shown by what Lucian says
of the "laughing Philosopher
"Democritus,who he tells his readers,
Believed in no [miracles ] ...but applied
himself to discover the method by which the
theurgists could produce them;in a word his
philosophy brought him to the conclusion that
magic was entirely confined to the application
and the imitation of the laws and the works of
nature.
[Internally it was a majestic fane in whose
sombre recesses were performed the Mysteries,
and whose walls had often witnessed the
initiation scenes of members of the royal family.The
porphyry sarcophagus,which Professor Piazzi
Smith Astronomer Royal of Scotland
degrades into a corn-bin was the baptismal
font upon emerging from which the neophyte
was ‘born again 'and became an adept.'(Isis
Unveiled .i.518 519.)]
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(Page 22)Who then can still call the Magic of the
Ancients "superstition"?
In this respect the opinion of Democritus is
of the greatest importance to us,since the Magi left
by Xerxes,at Abdera were his instructors,and
he had studied magic,moreover for a
considerable time with the Egyptian priests.[ Diog.Laert.in
"Democrit.Vit."] For
nearly
ninety years of the one hundred and nine of
his life this great philosopher had made
experiments,and noted them down in a
book,which according to Petronius,[Satyric
ix.3.]
treated of nat re -facts that he had verified himself.And we find him not only
disbelieving in
and utterly rejecting miracles,but asserting
that every one of those that were authenticated by
eye-witnesses,had and could have taken place
for all even the most incredible were
produced according to the "hidden laws
of nat re ."[ Pliny Hist.Nat
.]...Add to this that
Greece the "later cradle of the arts and
sciences,"and India cradle of religions,were and
one of them still is,devoted to its study and
practice -and who shall venture to discredit its
dignity as a study and its profundity as a
science?[Isis Unveiled I.512
.]
No true Theosophist will ever do so.For as a
member of our great Oriental body he knows indubitably
that the Secret Doctrine of the East contains
the Alpha and the Omega of Universal Science;that in its
obscure texts,under the luxuriant though
perhaps too exuberant growth of allegorical Symbolism lie
concealed the corner and the key-stones of all
ancient and modern knowledge.That Stone brought
down by the Divine Builder is now rejected by
the too-human workman and this because in his lethal
materiality man has lost every recollection
not only of his holy childhood but of his very adolescence
when he was one of the Builders himself;when
"the morning stars sang together and the Sons of God
shouted for joy."after they had laid the
measures for the foundations of the earth -to use the deeply
significant and poetical language of Job the
Arabian Initiate.But those who are still able to make room in
their innermost selves for the Divine Ray and
who accept therefore the data of the Secret Sciences in
good faith and humility they know well that it
is in this Stone that remains buried the absolute in
Philosophy which is the key to all those dark
problems of Life and Death some of which at any rate
may find an explanation in these volumes.
The writer is vividly alive to the tremendous
difficulties that present themselves in the handling of such
abstruse questions,and to all the dangers of
the task.Insulting as it is to human nature to brand truth
with the name of imposture nevertheless we see
this done daily and accept it.
Occultism Must Win the Day -(Page 23)For every occult truth has to pass through such
denial and its
supporters through martyrdom before it is
finally accepted;though even then it remains but too often -
A crown
Golden in show yet but a wreath of thorns.
Truths that rest on Occult Mysteries will have
for one reader who may appreciate them a thousand who
will brand them as impostures.This is only
natural and the only means to avoid it would be for an
Occultist to pledge himself to the Pythagorean
"vow of silence."and renew it every five years.Otherwise
cultured society -two-thirds of which think
themselves in duty bound to believe that since the first
appearance of the first Adept one half of
mankind practised deception and fraud on the other half -
cultured society will undeniably assert its
hereditary and traditional right to stone the intruder.Those
benevolent critics,who most readily promulgate
the now famous axiom of Carlyle with regard to his
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countrymen of being "mostly
fools,"having taken preliminary care to include themselves safely in the
only fortunate exceptions to this rule will in
this work gain strength and derive additional conviction of the
sad fact that the human race is simply
composed of knaves and congenital idiots.But this matters very
little.The vindication of the Occultists and
their Archaic Science is working itself slowly but steadily into
the very heart of society hourly daily and
yearly in the shape of two monster branches,two stray off-
shoots of the trunk of Magic -Spiritualism and
the Roman Church.Fact works its way very often through
fiction.Like an immense boa-constrictor Error
in every shape encircles mankind trying to smother in
her deadly coils every aspiration towards
truth and light.But Error is powerful only on the surface
prevented as she is by Occult Nature from
going any deeper;for the same Occult Nature encircles the
whole globe in every direction leaving not
even the darkest corner unvisited.And whether by
phenomenon or miracle by spirit-hook or
bishop's crook,Occultism must win the day before the present
era reaches "Shani's (Saturn's)triple
septenary"of the Western Cycle in Europe in other words -before
the end of the twenty-first century
"A.D."
Truly the soil of the long by-gone past is not
dead for it has only rested.The skeletons of the sacred
oaks of the ancient Druids may still send
shoots from their dried-up boughs and be reborn to a new (Page
24)life like that handful of corn in the sarcophagus
of a mummy 4.000 years old which when planted
sprouted grew and "gave a fine
harvest."Why not?Truth is stranger than fiction.It may any day and
most unexpectedly vindicate its wisdom and
demonstrate the conceit of our age by proving that the
Secret Brotherhood did not indeed die out with
the Philalethians of the last Eclectic School that the
Gnosis flourishes still on earth and its
votaries are many albeit unknown.All this be done by one or
more of the great Masters visiting Europe and
exposing in their turn the alleged exposers and traducers
of Magic.Such secret Brotherhoods have been
mentioned by several well-known authors,and are
spoken of in Mackenzie's Royal Masonic
Cyclopaedia .The writer now in the face of the millions who
deny repeats boldly that which was said in Isis
Unveiled.
If they [the Initiates ] have been regarded as
mere fictions of the novelist that fact has only
helped the "brother-adepts"to keep
their incognito the more easily....
The St.Germains and Cagliostros of this
century having learned bitter lessons from the
vilifications and persecutions of the past
pursue different tactics now-a-days.[Op.cit
.ii.403 .]
These prophetic words were written in 1876 and
verified in 1886.Nevertheless,we say again
There are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods
which have naught to do with "civilized"
countries;and it is in their unknown
communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past.
These "adepts"could if they chose
lay claim to strange ancestry and exhibit verifiable
documents that would explain many a mysterious
page in both sacred and profane history.
[ This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do and
many a "mysterious page"in
sacred and profane history are touched on in
these pages.Whether or not their explanations
will be accepted -is another question .]Had the keys to the hieratic
writings and the secret of
Egyptian and Hindu symbolism been known to the
Christian Fathers,they would not have
allowed a single monument of old to stand
unmutilated.[ Ibid.]
But there exists in the world another class of
adepts,belonging to a brotherhood also and mightier than
any other of those known to the profane.Many
among these are personally good and benevolent even
pure and holy occasionally as
individuals.Pursuing collectively however and as a body a selfish one-
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sided object with relentless vigour and
determination they have to be ranked with the adepts of the
Black Art.
Black Magic at Work -(Page 25)These are our modern Roman Catholic "fathers"and
clergy.Most of the
hieratic writings and symbols have been
deciphered by them since the Middle Ages.A hundred times
more learned in secret Symbology and the old
Religions than our Orientalists will ever be the
personification of astuteness and
cleverness,every such adept in the art holds the keys tightly in his
firmly clenched hand and will take care the
secret shall not be easily divulged if he can help it.There are
more profoundly learned Kabalists in Rome and
throughout Europe and America than is generally
suspected.Thus are the professedly public
"brotherhoods"of "black"adepts more powerful and
dangerous for Protestant countries than any
host of Eastern Occultists.People laugh at Magic!Men of
Science Physiologists and Biologists,deride
the potency and even the belief in the existence of what is
called in vulgar parlance "Sorcery"and
"Black Magic"?The Archaeologists have their Stonehenge in
England with its thousands of secrets,and its
twin-brother Karnac of Brittany and yet there is not one of
them who even suspects what has been going on
in its crypts and its mysterious nooks and corners,for
the last century.More than that they do not
even know of the existence of such "magic halls"in their
Stonehenge where curious scenes are taking
place whenever there is a new convert in view.Hundreds
of experiments have been and are being made
daily at the Salpetriere and also by learned hypnotisers
at their private houses.It is now proved that
certain sensitives -both men and women -when
commanded in trance by the practitioner who
operates on them to do a certain thing -from drinking a
glass of water up to simulated murder -on
recovering their normal state lose all remembrance of the
order inspired -"suggested"it is now
called by Science.Nevertheless,at the appointed hour and
moment the subject though conscious and
perfectly awake is compelled by an irresistible power within
himself to do that action which has been
suggested to him by his mesmeriser;and that too whatever it
may be and whatever the period fixed by him
who controls the subject that is to say holds the latter
under the power of his will as a snake holds a
bird under its fascination and finally forces it to jump into
its open jaws.Worse than this:for the bird is
conscious of the peril;it resists however helpless in its final
efforts,while the hypnotized subject does not
rebel but seems to follow the suggestions and voice of its
own free-will and soul.Who of our European men
of Science who believe in such scientific experiments
-and very (Page 26)few are they who still doubt them
now-a-days,and who do not feel convinced of their
actual reality -who of them it is asked is
ready to admit this as being Black Magic?Yet it is the gen ine
undeniable and actual fascination and sorcery
of old.The Mulu Kurumbas of Nilgiri do not proceed
otherwise in their envo tements when
they seek to destroy an enemy nor do the Dugpas of Sikkim and
Bhutan know of any more potential agent than
their wil l.Only in them that will does not proceed by jumps
and starts but acts with certainty;it does not
depend on the amount of receptivity or nervous
impressibility of the
"subjects."Having chosen his victim and placed himself en rapport with
them the
Dugpa's "fluid"is sure to find its
way for his will is immeasurably more strongly developed than the will of
the European experimenter -the self-made
untutored and nconscio s Sorcerer for the sake of Science
-who has no idea (or belief either)of the
variety and potency of the world-old methods used to develop
this power by the conscio s sorcerer
the "Black Magician"of the East and West.
And now the question is openly and squarely
asked:Why should not the fanatical and zealous priest
thirsting to convert some selected rich and
influential member of society use the same means to
accomplish his end as the French Physician and
experimenter uses in his case with his subject?The
conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is
most likely at peace.He works personally for no selfish
purpose but with the object of "saving a
soul"from "eternal damnation."In his view if Magic there be in
it it is holy meritorious and divine
Magic.Such is the power of blind faith.
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Hence when we are assured by trustworthy and
respectable persons of high social standing and
unimpeachable character that there are many
well-organised societies among the Roman Catholic
priests which under the pretext and cover of
Modern Spiritualism and mediumship hold séances for the
purposes of conversion by suggestion directly
and at a distance -we answer:We know it.And when
moreover we are told that whenever those
priest-hypnotists are desirous of acquiring an influence over
some individual or individuals,selected by
them for conversion they retire to an underground place
allotted and consecrated by them for such
purposes (viz .ceremonial Magic);and there forming a circle
throw their combined will-power in the
direction of that individual and thus by repeating the process,gain
a complete control over their victim -we again
answer:Very likely.
Black Magic and Hypnotism -(Page 27)In fact we know the practice to be so whether
this kind of
ceremonial Magic and envoûtement is
practised at Stonehenge or elsewhere.We know it we say
through personal experience;and also because
several of the writer's best and most loved friends have
been unconsciously drawn into the Romish
Church and under her "benign"protection by such means.
And therefore we can only laugh in pity at the
ignorance and stubbornness of those deluded men of
Science and cultured experimentalists who
while believing in the power of Dr.Charcot and his disciples
to "envoûté "their subjects
find nothing better than a scornful smile whenever Black Magic and its
potency are mentioned before them.Eliphas Levi
the Abbe-Kabalist died before Science and the
Faculté de Médecine of France had accepted hypnotism and influence par s
ggestion among its
scientific experiments,but this is what he
said twenty-five years go in his Dogme et Rit el de la Ha te
Magie,on
"Les Envo tements et les Sorts ":
That which sorcerers and necromancers sought
above all things in their evocations of the
Spirit of Evil was that magnetic potency which
is the lawful property of the true Adept and
which they desired to obtain possession of for
evil purposes....One of their chief aims was
the power of spells or of deleterious
influences....That power may be compared to real
poisonings by a current of astral light.They
exalt their will by means of ceremonies to the
degree of rendering it venomous at a distance....We
have said in our "Dogma"what we
thought of magic spells,and how this power was
exceedingly real and dangerous.The true
Magus throws a spell without ceremony and by
his sole disapproval upon those with whose
conduct he is dissatisfied and whom he thinks
it necessary to punish;[ This is
incorrectly
expressed.The true Adept of the "Right
Hand"never punishes anyone not even his bitterest
and most dangerous enemy:he simply leaves the
latter to his Karma and Karma never fails to
do so sooner or later.] he casts a spell even by his pardon over those who do him injury
and
the enemies of Initiates never long enjoy
impunity for their wrong-doing.We have ourselves
seen proofs of this fatal law in numerous
instances.The executioners of martyrs always perish
miserably;and the Adepts are the martyrs of
intelligence.Providence [Karma ] seems to
despise those who despise them and puts to
death those who would seek to prevent them
from living.The legend of the Wandering Jew is
the popular poetry of this arcanum.A people
had sent a sage to crucifixion;that people had
bidden him "Move on!"when he tried to rest for
one moment....well!That people will become
subject henceforth to a similar condemnation;it
will become entirely proscribed and for long
centuries it will be hidden "Move on!move on!"
finding neither rest nor pity.[Op.cit .ii.239.241 240.]
(Page 28)"Fables,"and "superstition
"will be the answer.Be it so.Before the lethal breath of selfishness
and indifference every uncomfortable fact is
transformed into meaningless fiction and every branch of
the once verdant Tree of Truth has become
dried up and stripped of its primeval spiritual significance.
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Our modern Symbologist is superlatively clever
only at detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems
even where none were ever meant.But for the
true student of Occult Lore White or Divine Magic could
no more exist in Nature without its
counterpart Black Magic,than day without night whether these be of
twelve hours or of six months duration.For him
everything in that Nature has an occult -a bright and a
night side to it.Pyramids and Druid's
oaks,dolmens and Bo-trees,plant and mineral -everything was full
of deep significance and of sacred truths of
wisdom when the Arch-Druid performed his magic cures and
incantations,and the Egyptian Hierophant
evoked and guided Chemnu the "lovely spectre "the female
Frankenstein-creation of old raised for the
torture and test of the soul-power of the candidate for
initiation simultaneously with the last
agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature.True Magic has lost
its name and along with it its rights to
recognition.But its practice is in daily use;and its progeny
"magnetic influence ""power of
oratory ""irresistible fascination ""whole audiences
subdued and held as
though under a spell "are terms
recognised and used by all generally meaningless though they now are.
Its effects,however are more determined and
definite among religious congregations such as the
Shakers,the Negro Methodists,and
Salvationists,who call it "the action of the Holy Spirit"and
"grace."
The real truth is that Magic is still in full
sway amidst mankind however blind the latter to its silent
presence and influence on its members,however
ignorant society may be and remain to its daily and
hourly beneficent and maleficent effects.The
world is full of such unconscious magicians -in politics as
well as in daily life in the Church as in the
strongholds of Free-Thought.Most of those magicians are
"sorcerers"unhappily not
metaphorically but in sober reality by reason of their inherent
selfishness,their
revengeful natures,their envy and malice.The
true student of Magic,well aware of the truth looks on in
pity and if he be wise keeps silent.For every
effort made by him to remove the universal cecity is only
repaid with ingratitude slander and often
curses,which unable to reach him,will react on those who
wish him evil.Lies and calumny -the latter a
teething lie adding actual bites to empty harmless
falsehoods -become his lot and thus the
well-wisher is soon torn to pieces,as a reward for his
benevolent desire to enlighten.
The Philosophy Stands on Its Own Merits -(Page 29)Enough has been given it is believed to show
that the existence of a Secret Universal
Doctrine besides its practical methods of Magic,is no wild
romance or fiction.The fact was known to the
whole ancient world and the knowledge of it has survived
in the East in India especially.And if there
be such a Science there must be naturally somewhere
professors of it or Adepts.In any case it
matters little whether the Guardians of the Sacred Lore are
regarded as living actually existing men or
are viewed as myths.It is their Philosophy that will have to
stand or fall upon its own merits,apart from
and independent of any Adepts.For in the words of the wise
Gamaliel addressed by him to the
Synedrion:"If this doctrine is false it will perish and fall of itself;but
if
true then -it cannot be destroyed.
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SECTION II
Modern Criticism and the Ancients
(Page 30)THE Secret Doctrine of the Aryan East is found
repeated under Egyptian symbolism and
phraseology in the Book of Hermes.At or near
the beginning of the present century all the books called
Hermetic were in the opinion of the average
man of Science unworthy of serious attention.They were
set down and loudly proclaimed as simply a
collection of tales,of fraudulent pretences and most absurd
claims.They "never existed before the
Christian era "it was said:"they were all written with the triple
object of speculation deceiving and pious
fraud;"they were all even the best of them silly apocrypha.[
See in this connection Pne matologie des
Esprits by the Marquis de Mirville who devotes six enormous
volumes to show the absurdity of those who
deny the reality of Satan and Magic,or the Occult Sciences -
the two being with him synonymous.] In this respect the nineteenth
century proved a most worthy scion
of the eighteenth for in the age of Voltaire
as well as in this century everything save what emanated
direct from the Royal Academy was false
superstitious,foolish.Belief in the wisdom of the Ancients was
laughed to scorn perhaps more so even than it
is now.The very thought of accepting as authentic the
works and vagaries of "a false Hermes,a
false Orpheus,a false Zoroaster "of false Oracles,false Sibyls,
and a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid
was tabooed all along the line.Thus all that had its
genesis outside the learned and dogmatic
precincts of Oxford and Cambridge [ We
think we see the
sidereal phantom of the old Philosopher and
Mystic -once of Cambridge University -Henry More
moving about in the astral mist over the old
moss-covered roofs of the ancient town in which he wrote his
famous letter to Glanvil about
"witches."The "soul"seems restless and indignant as on that
day of May
1678 when the doctor complained so bitterly to
the author of Sadd cism s Tri mphat s of Scot Adie
and Webster."Our new inspired saints
"the soul is heard to mutter "sworn advocates of the witches....
who against all sense and reason ...Will have
no Samuel but a confederate knave ...these in-blown
buffoons,puffed up with ...ignorance vanity
and stupid infidelity!"(See "Letter to Glanvil "and Isis
Unveiled i 205 206)]or the Academy
of France was denounced in those days as ‘unscientific,"and
"ridiculously absurd."This tendency
has survived to the present day.
All Honour to Genuine Scientists -(Page 31)Nothing can be further from the intention of
any true
Occultist -who stands possessed by virtue of
his higher psychic development of instruments of
research far more penetrating in their power
than any as yet in the hands of physical experimentalists -
than to look unsympathetically on the efforts
that are being made in the area of physical enquiry.The
exertions and labours undertaken to solve as
many as possible of the problems of Nature have always
been holy in his sight.The spirit in which Sir
Isaac Newton remarked that at the end of all his
astronomical work he felt a mere child picking
up shells beside the Ocean of Knowledge is one of
reverence for the boundlessness of Nature
which Occult Philosophy itself cannot eclipse.And it may
freely be recognised that the attitude of mind
which this famous simile describes is one which fairly
represents that of the great majority of gen
ine Scientists in regard to all the phenomena of the physical
plane of Nature.In dealing with this they are
often caution and moderation itself.They observe facts with
a patience that cannot be surpassed.They are
slow to cast these into theories,with a prudence that
cannot be too highly commended.And subject to
the limitations under which they serve Nature they are
beautifully accurate in the record of their
observations.Moreover it may be conceded further that modern
Scientists are exceedingly improbable that any
discovery will ever conflict with such or such a theory
now supported by such and such an aggregation
of recorded facts.But even in reference to the broadest
generalizations -which pass into a dogmatic
form only in brief popular text books of scientific knowledge
-the tone of "Science"itself if that
abstraction may be held to be embodied in the persons of its most
distinguished representatives,is one of
reserve and often of modesty.
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Far therefore from being disposed to scoff at
the errors into which the limitations of their methods may
betray men of Science the true Occultist will
rather appreciate the pathos of a situation in which great
industry and thirst for truth are condemned to
disappointment and often to confusion.
That which is to be deplored however in
respect to Modern Science is in itself an evil manifestation of
the excessive caution which in its most
favourable aspect protects Science from over-hasty conclusions:
(Page 32)namely the tardiness of Scientists to
recognise that other instruments of research may be
applicable to the mysteries of Nature besides
those of the physical plane and that it may consequently
be impossible to appreciate the phenomena of
any one plane correctly without observing them as well
from the points of view afforded by others.In
so far then as they wilfully shut their eyes to evidence which
ought to have shown them clearly that Nature
is more complex than physical phenomena alone would
suggest that there are means by which the
faculties of human perception can pass sometimes from one
plane to the other and that their energy is
being misdirected while they turn it exclusively on the minutiae
of physical structure or force they are less
entitled to sympathy than to blame.
One feels dwarfed and humbled in reading what
M.Renan that learned modern "destroyer"of every
religious belief past present and future has
to say of poor humanity and its powers of discernment.He
believes
Mankind has but a very narrow mind;and the
number of men capable of seizing acutely
(finement)the true analogy of things,is quite
imperceptible.[ Ét des
Religie ses .]
Upon comparing however this statement with
another opinion expressed by the same author namely
that:
The mind of the critic should yield to
facts,hand and feet bound to be dragged by them
wherever they may lead him.[Ét des Historiq es .]
one feels relieved.When moreover these two
philosophical statements are strengthened by a third
enunciation of the famous Academician which
declares that:
To t parti pris a priori,doit etre banni de
la science [Mémoire read at the
Academie des
Inscriptions des Belles Lettres,in 1859 .]
there remains little to fear.Unfortunately
M.Renan is the first to break this golden rule.
The evidence of Herodotus -called
sarcastically no doubt the "Father of History "since in every
question upon which Modern Thought disagrees
with him,his testimony goes for nought -the sober and
earnest assurances in the philosophical
narratives of Plato and Thucydides,Polybius,and Plutarch and
even certain statements of Aristotle himself
are invariably laid aside whenever they are involved in what
modern criticism is pleased to regard as
myth.It is some time since Strauss proclaimed that:
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What is a Myth?-
(Page 33)The presence of a supernatural element or
miracle in a narrative is an infallible sign
of the presence in it of a myth;
and such is the canon of criticism tacitly
adopted by every modern critic.But what is a myth -ìõèïò-to
begin with?Are we not told distinctly by
ancient writers that the word means tradition?Was not the Latin
term fab la a fable synonymous with
something told as having happened in pre-historic times,and not
necessarily an invention.With such autocrats
of criticism and despotic rulers as are most of the French
English and German Orientalists,there may then
be no end of historical geographical ethnological
and philological surprises in store for the
century to come.Travesties in Philosophy have become so
common of late that the public can be startled
by nothing in this direction.It has already been stated by
one learned speculator that Homer was simply
"a mythical personification of the épopée ";[ See Alfred
Maury's Histoire des Religions de la Grèce .i.248:and
the speculations of Holzmann in Zeitschriftf r
Vergleichende Sprach forsch ng ann.1882 p.487.sq.] by
another that Hippocrates,son of Esculapius,
"could only be a chimera";that the
Asclepiades,their seven hundred years of duration notwithstanding
might after all prove simply a
"fiction";that "the city of Troy (Dr.Schliemann to the
contrary)existed only
on the maps."etc.Why should not the world
be invited after this to regard every hitherto historical
character of days of old as a myth?Were not
Alexander the Great needed by Philology as a sledge-
hammer wherewith to break the heads of
Brahmanical chronological pretensions,he would have become
long ago simply "a symbol for annexation
"or "a genius of conquest "as has been already suggested by
some French writer.
Blank denial is the only refuge left to the
critics.It is the most secure asylum for some time to come in
which to shelter the last of the sceptics.For
one who denies unconditionally the trouble of arguing is
unnecessary and he also thus avoids what is
worse having to yield occasionally a point or two before
the irrefutable arguments and facts of his
opponent.Creuzer the greatest of all the modern
Symbologists,the most learned among the masses
of erudite German Mythologists,must have envied
the placid self-confidence of certain
sceptics,when he found himself forced in a moment of desperate
perplexity to admit that:
We are compelled to return to the theories of
trolls and genii as they were understood by the
ancients;[it is a doctrine ] without which it
becomes absolutely impossible to explain to oneself
anything with regard to the Mysteries.[Creuzer's Introd ction des
Mystères iii 456.]
of the Ancients,which Mysteries are
undeniable.
(Page 34)Roman Catholics,who are guilty of precisely
the same worship and to the very letter -having
borrowed it from the later Chaldaeans,the
Lebanon Nabathaeans,and the baptized Sabaeans,[The
later Nabathaeans adhered to the same belief
as the Nazarenes and the Sabaeans,honoured John the
Baptist and used Baptistm.(See Isis
Unveiled ii.127:Munck,Palestine p.525;Dunlap Sid,the Son of
Man .etc.)]and not from the learned Astronomers
and Initiates of the days of old -would now by
anathematizing it hide the source from which
it came.Theology and Churchianism would fain trouble the
clear fountain that fed them from the first to
prevent posterity from looking into it and thus seeing their
original prototype.The Occultists,however
believe the time has come to give everyone his due.As to
our other opponents -the modern sceptic and
the Epicurean the cynic and the Sadducee -they may find
an answer to their denials in our earlier
volumes.As to many unjust aspersions on the ancient doctrines,
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the reason for them is given in these words in
Isis Unveiled :
The thought of the present-day commentator and
critic as to the ancient learning is limited to
and runs round the exoterism of the
temples;his insight is either unwilling or unable to
penetrate into the solemn adyta of old where
the hierophant instructed the neophyte to regard
the public worship in its true light.No
ancient sage would have taught that man is the king of
creation and that the starry heaven and our
mother earth were created for his sake.[i.535.]
When we find such works as Phallicism [ By Hargrave Jennings .] appearing in our day in print it is
easy
to see that the day of concealment and
travesty has passed away.Science in Philology Symbolism and
Comparative Religion has progressed too far to
make wholesale denials any longer and the Church is
too wise and cautious not to be now making the
best of the situation.Meanwhile the "rhombs of Hecate"
and the "wheels of Lucifer "[ See de Mirville's Pne matologie iii
267 et seq.] daily exhumed on
the sites
of Babylonia can no longer be used as clear
evidence of a Satan-worship since the same symbols are
shown in the ritual of the Latin Church.The
latter is too learned to be ignorant of the fact that even the
later Chaldaeans,who had gradually fallen into
dualism reducing all things to two primal Principles,
never worshipped Satan or idols,any more than
did the Zoroastrians,who now lie under the same
accusation but that their Religion was as
highly philosophical as any;their dual and exoteric Theosophy
became the heirloom of the Jews,who in their
turn were forced to share it with the Christians.Parsis
are to this day charged with Heliolatry and
yet in the Chaldean Oracles,under the "Magical and
Philosophical Precepts of Zoroaster"one finds
the following:
Chaldean Oracles -(Page 35)
Direct not thy mind to the vast measures of
the earth;
For the plant of truth is not upon ground.
Nor measure the measures of the sun collecting
rules,
For he is carried by the eternal will of the
Father not for your sake.
Dismiss the impetuous course of the moon;for
she runs always by work of necessity.
The progression of the stars was not generated
for your sake.
There was a vast difference between the true
worship taught to those who showed themselves worthy
and the state religions.The Magians are
accused of all kinds of superstition but this is what the same
Chaldaean Oracle says:
The wide aerial flight of birds is not true
Nor the dissections of the entrails of
victims;they are all mere toys
The basis of mercenary fraud;flee from these
If you would open the sacred paradise of piety
Where virtue wisdom and equity are assembled.
[ Psellus,4:in Cory's Ancient Fragments.269.]
As we say in our former work:
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Surely it is not those who warn people against
"mercenary fraud"who can be accused of it;
and if they accomplished acts which seem
miraculous,who can with fairness presume to deny
that it was done merely because they possessed
a knowledge of natural philosophy and
psychological science to a degree unknown to
our schools?[ Isis Unveiled,i
535 536.]
The above q oted stanzas are a rather
strange teaching to come from those who are niversally
believed to have worshipped the s n,and
moon,and the starry hosts,as Gods.The sublime prof ndity
of the Magian precepts being beyond the
reach of modern materialistic tho ght,the Chaldean
Philosophers are acc sed of Sabaeanism and
S n-worship,which was the religion only of the
ned cated masses.
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SECTION III
The Origin of Magic
(Page 36)THINGS of late have changed true enough.The
field of investigation has widened;old religions
are a little better understood;and since that
miserable day when the Committee of the French Academy
headed by Benjamin Franklin investigated
Mesmer ’s phenomena only to proclaim them charlatanry and
clever knavery both heathen Philosophy and
Mesmerism have acquired certain rights and privileges,
and are now viewed from quite a different
standpoint.Is full justice rendered them however and are they
any better appreciated?We are afraid not.Human
nature is the same now as when Pope said of the
force of prejudice that:
The difference is as great between
The optics seeing as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own
Or some discolour ’d through our passions
shown
Or fancy ’s beam enlarges,multiplies,
Contracts,inverts,and gives ten thousand dyes.
Thus in the first decades of our century
Hermetic Philosophy was regarded by both Churchmen and men
of Science from two quite opposite points of
view.The former called it sinful and devilish;the latter
denied point-blank its authenticity
notwithstanding the evidence brought forward by the most erudite men
of every age including our own.The learned
Father Kircher for instance was not even noticed;and his
assertion that all the fragments known under
titles of works by Mercury Trismegistus,Berosus,
Pherecydes of Syros,etc.were rolls that had
escaped the fire which devoured 100 000 volumes of the
great Alexandrian Library -was simply laughed
at.Nevertheless the educated classes of Europe knew
then as they do now that the famous
Alexandrian Library the “marvel of the ages,” was founded by
Ptolemy Philadelphus;that numbers of its MSS
had been carefully copied from hieratic texts and the
oldest parchments,Chaldaean Phoenician Persian
etc;and that these transliterations and copies
amounted in their turn to another 100 000
rolls,as Josephus and Strabo assert.
The Books of Hermes -(Page 37)There is also the additional evidence of Clemens
Alexandrinus,that
ought to be credited to some extent.[ The forty-two Sacred Books of the
Egyptians mentioned by
Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his
time were but a portion of the Books of Hermes.
Iamblichus,on the authority of the Egyptian
priest Abammon attributes 1 200 of such books to Hermes,
and Manetho 36.000.But the testimony of
Iamblichus as a Neoplatonist and Theurgist is of course
rejected by modern critics.Manetho who is held
by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely-
historical personage ” with whom “none of the
later native historians can be compared ” (see Egypte,i.
97)suddenly becomes a Pseudo-Manetho as soon
as the ideas propounded by him clash with the
scientific prejudices against Magic and the
Occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests.However
none of the Archaeologists doubt for a moment
the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books.
Champollion shows the greatest regard for
their authenticity and truthfulness,corroborated as it is by
many of the oldest monuments.And Bunsen brings
irrefutable proofs of their age.From his researches,
for instance we learn that there was a line of
sixty-one kings before the days of Moses,who preceded
the Mosaic period by a clearly-traceable civilization
of several thousand years.Thus we are warranted in
believing that the works of Hermes
Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish
law-giver.“Styli and inkstands were found on
monuments of the fourth Dynasty the oldest in the world ”
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says Bunsen.If the eminent Egyptologist
rejects the period of 48.863 years before Alexander to which
Diogenes Laertius carries back the records of
the priests he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten
thousand of astronomical observations,and
remarks that “if they were actual observations,they must
have extended
over 10.000 years ” (p.44).“We learn however ” he adds,“from one of their own
old
chronological works ...that the genuine
Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period treated
of myriads of years.” (Egypte,i
15:Isis Unveiled i.33)] Clemens
testified to the existence of an
additional 30 000 volumes of the Books of
Thoth placed in the library of the Tomb of Osymandias,over
the entrance of which were inscribed the
words,“ A Cure for the Soul.”
Since then as all know entire texts of the
“apocryphal ” works of the “false ” Pymander and the no less
“false ” Asclepias,have been found by
Champollion in the most ancient monuments of Egypt.[ These
details are taken from Pne matologie,iii
pp 204 205 ] As said in Isis
Unveiled :
After having devoted their whole lives to the
study of the records of the old Egyptian wisdom
both Champollion-Figeac and Champollion Junior
publicly declared notwithstanding many
biased judgments hazarded by certain hasty and
unwise critics,that the Books of Hermes
“truly contain a mass of Egyptian traditions
which are constantly corroborated by the most
authentic records and monuments of Egypt of
the hoariest antiquity.”[ Egypte,p.143
Isis
Unveiled,i.625.]
The merit of Champollion as an Egyptologist
none will question and if he declare that everything
demonstrates the accuracy of the writings of
the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus,and if the assertion
that their antiquity runs back into the night
of time be corroborated by him in (Page 38)minutest details,
then indeed criticism ought to be fully
satisfied.Says Champollion:
These inscriptions are only the faithful echo
and expression of the most ancient verities.
Since these words were written some of the
“apocryphal ”verses by the “mythical ”Orpheus have also
been found copied word for word in
hieroglyphics,in certain inscriptions of the Fourth Dynasty
addressed to various Deities.Finally Creuzer
discovered and immediately pointed out the very
significant fact that numerous passages found
in Homer and Hesiod were undeniably borrowed by the
two great poets from the Orphic Hymns,thus
proving the latter to be far older than the Iliad or the
Odyssey.
And so gradually the ancient claims come to be
vindicated and modern criticism has to submit to
evidence.Many are now the writers who confess
that such a type of literature as the Hermetic works of
Egypt can never be dated too far back into the
prehistoric ages.The texts of many of these ancient
works,that of Enoch included so loudly
proclaimed “apocryphal ”at the beginning of this century are now
discovered and recognised in the most secret
and sacred sanctuaries of Chaldaea India Phoenicia
Egypt and Central Asia.But even such proofs
have failed to convince the bulk of our Materialists.The
reason for this is very simple and evident.All
these texts -held in universal veneration in Antiquity found
in the secret libraries of all the great
temples,studied (if not always mastered)by the greatest statesmen
classical writers,philosophers,kings and
laymen as much as by renowned Sages -what were they?
Treatises on Magic and Occultism pure and
simple;the now derided and tabooed Theosophy -hence
the ostracism.
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Were people then so simple and credulous in
the days of Pythagoras and Plato?Were the millions of
Babylonia and Egypt of India and Greece with
their great Sages to lead them all fools,that during those
periods of great learning and civilization
which preceded the year one of our era -the latter giving birth
but to the intellectual darkness of mediaeval
fanaticism -so many otherwise great men should have
devoted their lives to a mere illusion a
superstition called Magic?It would seem so had one to remain
content with the word and conclusions of
modern Philosophy.
Every Art and Science however whatever its
intrinsic merit has had its discoverer and practitioner and
subsequently its proficients to teach it.
What is the Origin of Magic?-(Page 39)What is the origin of the Occult Sciences,or
Magic?Who were
its professors,and what is known of them
whether in history or legend?Clemens Alexandrinus,one of
the most intelligent and learned of the early
Christian Fathers,answers this question in his Stromateis.
That ex-pupil of the Neoplatonic School
argues:
If there is instruction you must seek for the
master.[ Strom .VI
vii.The following paragraph
from the same chapter .]
And so he shows Cleanthes taught by Zeno Theophrastus
by Aristotle Metrodorus by Epicurus,Plato by
Socrates,etc.And he adds that when he had
looked further back to Pythagoras,Pherecydes,and
Thales,he had still to search for their
masters.The same for the Egyptians,the Indians,the Babylonians,
and the Magi themselves.He would not cease
questioning he says to learn who it was they all had for
their masters.And when he (Clemens)had traced
down the enquiry to the very cradle of mankind to the
first generation of men he would reiterate
once more his questioning and ask,“Who is their teacher?”
Surely he argues,their master could be “no one
of men.” And even when we should have reached as
high as the Angels,the same query would have
to be offered to them:“Who were their (meaning the
‘divine ’ and the ‘fallen ’ Angels)masters?’
The aim of the good father ’s long argument is
of course to discover two distinct masters,one the
preceptor of biblical patriarchs,the other the
teacher of the Gentiles.But the students of the Secret
Doctrine need go to no such trouble.Their
professors are well aware who were the Masters of their
predecessors in Occult Sciences and Wisdom.
The two professors are finally traced out by
Clemens,and are as was to be expected God and his
eternal and everlasting enemy and opponent the
Devil;the subject of Clemens ’ enquiry relating to the
d al aspect
of Hermetic Philosophy as cause and effect.Admitting the moral beauty of the
virtues
preached in every Occult work with which he
was acquainted Clemens desires to know the cause of the
apparent contradiction between the doctrine
and the practice good and evil Magic,and he comes to the
conclusion that Magic has two origins -divine
and diabolical.He perceives its bifurcation into two
channels,hence his deduction and inference.
We perceive it too without however necessarily
designating such bifurcation diabolical for we judge the
“left-hand path ” as it (Page 40)issued from the hands of its founder.Otherwise
judging also by the effects
of Clemens ’ own religion and walk in life of
certain of its professors,since the death of their Master the
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Occultists would have a right to come to
somewhat the same conclusion as Clemens.They would have a
right to say that while Christ the Master of
all true Christians,was in every way godly those who resorted
to the horrors of the Inquisition to the
extermination and torture of heretics,Jews and Alchemists,the
Protestant Calvin who burnt Servetus and his
persecuting Protestant successors,down to the whippers
and burners of witches in America must have
had for their Master the Devil.But Occultists,not believing
in the Devil are precluded from retaliating in
this way.
Clemens ’ testimony however is valuable in so
far as it shows (1)the enormous number of works on
Occult Sciences in his day;and (2)the
extraordinary powers acquired through those Sciences by certain
men.
He devotes,for instance the whole of the sixth
book of his Stromat eis to this research for the first two
“Masters ” or the true and the false
Philosophy respectively both preserved as he says,in the Egyptian
sanctuaries.Very pertinently too he
apostrophises the Greeks,asking them why they should not accept
the “miracles ” of Moses as such since they
claim the very same privileges for their own Philosophers,
and he gives a number of instances.It is,as he
says,Aeachus obtaining through his Occult powers a
marvellous rain;it is Aristaeus causing the
winds to blow;Empedocles quieting the gale and forcing it to
cease etc.[ See Pne matologie,iii.207 Therefore Empedocles is called
êùëõèáõåìïòthe “dominator of
the wind.”Strom.,VI.iii.]
The books of Mercurius Trismegistus most
attracted his attention.[ Ibid.iv.] He is also warm in his praise
of Hystaspes (or Gushtasp),of the Sibylline
books,and even of the right Astrology.
There have been in all ages use and abuse of
Magic,as there are use and abuse of Mesmerism or
Hypnotism in our own.The ancient world had its
Apollonii and its Pherecydae and intellectual people
could discriminate then as they can now.While
no classical or pagan writer has ever found one word of
blame for Apollonius of Tyana for instance it
is not so with regard to Pherecydes.Hesychius of Miletia
Philo of Byblos and Eusthathius charges the
latter unstintingly with having built his Philosophy and
Science on demoniacal traditions -i.e.on
Sorcery.
Pherecydes of Syros -(Page 41)Cicero declares that Pherecydes is,poti s divin s q am
medicus,
rather a soothsayer than a physician ” and
Diogenes Laertius gives a vast number of stories relating to
his predictions.One day Pherecydes prophesies
the shipwreck of a vessel hundreds of miles away from
him;another time he predicts the capture of
Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians;finally he foresees his
own wretched end.[Summarised from Pne matologie,iii.209.]
Bearing in mind the objections that will be
made to the teachings of the Esoteric Doctrine as herein
propounded the writer is forced to meet some
of them beforehand.
Such imputations as those brought by Clemens
against the “heathen ” Adepts,only prove the presence of
clairvoyant powers and prevision in every age
but are no evidence in favour of a Devil.They are
therefore of no value except to the
Christians,for whom Satan is one of the chief pillars of the faith.
Baronius and De Mirville for instance find an
unanswerable proof of Demonology in the belief in the co-
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eternity of Matter with Spirit!
De Mirville writes that Pherecydes
Postulates in principle the primordiality of
Zeus or Ether and then on the same plane a
principle coeternal and coactive which he
calls the fifth element or Ogenos.[ Loc.cit.]
He then points out that the meaning of Ogenos
is given as that which shuts up which holds captive and
that is Hades,“or in a word hell.”
The synonyms are known to every schoolboy
without the Marquis going to the trouble of explaining them
to the Academy;as to the deduction every
Occultist will of course deny it and only smile at its folly.And
now we come to the theological conclusion.
The resumé of the views of the Latin Church
-as given by authors of the same characters as the Marquis
de Mirville -amounts to this:that the Hermetic
Books,their wisdom -fully admitted in Rome -
notwithstanding are “the heirloom left by Cain
the accursed to mankind.” It is “generally admitted ” says
that modern memorialist of Satan in History:
That immediately after the Flood Cham and his
descendants had propagated anew the
ancient teachings of the Cainites and of the
surmerged Race.[Op.cit.,iii
208 ]
(Page 42)This proves at any rate that Magic,or Sorcery
as he calls it is an antediluvian Art and thus
one point is gained.For as he says:-
The evidence of Berosius makes Ham identical
with the first Zoroaster founder of Bactria the
first author of all the magic arts of
Babylonia the Chemesen a or Cham [The
English
speaking people who spell the name of Noah's
disrespectful son “Ham ”have to be reminded
that the right spelling is “Kham ”or “Cham ”] the infamo s [ Black Magic,or Sorcery is the ev il
result obtain e d in any shape or way
through the practice of Occult Arts:hence it has to be
judged only by its effects.The name of neither
Ham nor Cain when pronounced has ever
killed any one;whereas,if we have to believe
that same Clemens Alexandrinus who traces the
teacher of every Occultist outside of
Christianity to the Devil the name of Jehovah
(pronounced Jevo and in a peculiar way)had the
effect of killing a man at a distance.The
mysterious Schemham-phorasch was not always
used for holy purposes by the Kabalists,
especially since the Sabbath or Saturday
sacred to Saturn or the evil Shani became -with
the Jews -sacred to “Jehovah.”] of the faithful Noachians,finally
the object of adoration for
Egypt which having received its name ÷çìåéá
whence chemistry built in his honour a town
called Choemnis,or the “city of fire.” [Khoemnis,the pre-historic city may or
may not have
been built by Noah's son but it was not his
name that was given to the town but that of the
Mystery Goddess Khoemnu or Khoemnis (Greek
form);the deity that was created by the
ardent fancy of the neophyte who was thus
tantalised during his “twelve labours ”of probation
before his final initiation.Her male
counterpart is Khem.The city of Choemnis or Khemmis
(today Akhmem)was the chief seat of the God
Khem.The Greeks identifying Khem with Pan
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called this city “Panopolis.”] Ham adored it it is said whence the
name Chammaim given to
the pyramids;which in their turn have been
vulgarised into our modern noun “chimney.”[
Pne matologie,iii 210.This looks more like pious vengeance than
philology.The picture
however seems incomplete as the author ought
to have added to the “chimney ” a witch flying
out of it on a broomstick.]
This statement is entirely wrong.Egypt was the
cradle of Chemistry and its birth-place -this is pretty well
known by this time.Only Kenrick and others
show the root of the word to be chemi or chem,which is not
Chem or
Ham but Khem,the Egyptian phallic God of the Mysteries.
But this is not all.De Mirville is bent upon
finding a satanic origin even for the now innocent Tarot.
He goes on to say:
As to the means for the propagation of this
evil Magic,tradition points it out in certain runic
characters traced on metallic plates [or
leaves,des lames ] which have escaped destruction by
the Deluge [ How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed
it?This is scarcely
logical.] This might have been regarded as legendary had not subsequent
discoveries shown
it far from being so.Plates were found covered
with curious and utterly undecipherable
characters,characters of undeniable antiquity
to which the Chamites [Sorcerers,with the
author ] attribute the origin to their
marvellous and terrible powers.[Loc.cit.,p.210
]
The pious author may meanwhile be left to his
own orthodox beliefs.
Cain Mathematical and Anthropomorphic -(Page 43)He at any rate seems quite sincere in his
views.
Nevertheless,his able arguments will have to
be sapped at their very foundation for it must be shown on
mathematical grounds who or rather what Cain
and Ham really were.De Mirville is only the faithful son
of his Church interested in keeping Cain in
his anthropomorphic character and in his present place in
“Holy Writ.” The student of Occultism on the
other hand is solely interested in the truth.But the age has
to follow the natural course of evolution.
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SECTION IV
The Secrecy of Initiates
(Page 44)THE false rendering of a number of parables
and sayings of Jesus is not to be wondered at in
the least.From Orpheus,the first initiated
Adept of whom history catches a glimpse in the mists of the
pre-Christian era down through
Pythagoras,Confucius,Buddha Jesus,Apollonius of Tyana to
Ammonius Saccas,no Teacher or Initiate has
ever committed to writing for public use.Each and all of
them have invariably recommended silence and
secresy on certain facts and deeds,from Confucius,
who refused to explain publicly and
satisfactorily what he meant by his “Great Extreme ” or to give the
key to the divination by “straws ” down to
Jesus,who charged his disciples to tell no man that he was
Christ [
Matthew xvi.20.] (Chrestos),the
“man of sorrows ” and trials,before his supreme and last
Initiation or that he had produced a “miracle
” of resurrection.[ Mark v.43
.] The Apostles had to
preserve silence so that the left hand should
not know what the right hand did;in plainer words,that the
dangerous proficients in the Left Hand Science
-the terrible enemies of the Right Hand Adepts,
especially before their supreme Initiation
-should not profit by the publicity so as to harm both the healer
and the patient.And if the above is maintained
to be simply an assumption then what may be the
meaning of these awful words:
Unto you it is given to know the mystery of
the Kingdom of God;but unto them that are without
all these things are done in parables;that
seeing they may see and not perceive;and hearing
they may hear and not understand;lest at any
time they should be converted and their sins
should be forgiven them.[ Mark iv.11 .]
Exoteric and Esoteric Teachings -(Page 45)Unless interpreted in the sense of the law of
silence and
Karma the utter selfishness and uncharitable
spirit of this remark are but too evident.These words are
directly connected with the terrible dogma of
predestination.Will the good and intelligent Christian cast
such a slur of cruel selfishness on his
Saviour?[ It is not evident that
the words:“lest at any time they
should be converted (or:“lest haply they
should turn again ” -as in the revised version)and their sins be
forgiven them ” -do not at all mean to imply
that Jesus feared that through repentance any outsider or
“them that are without ” should escape
damnation as the literal dead-letter sense plainly shows -but
quite a different thing?Namely “lest any of
the profane should by understanding his preaching
undisguised by parable get hold of some of the
secret teachings and mysteries of Initiation -and even of
Occult powers?“Be converted ” is,in other
words,to obtain a knowledge belonging exclusively to the
Initiated:“and their sins be forgiven them ”
that is,their sins would fall upon the illegal revealer on those
who had helped the unworthy reap there where
they have never laboured to sow and had given them,
thereby the means of escaping on this earth
their deserved Karma which must thus re-act on the
revealer who instead of good did harm and
failed.]
The work of propagating such truths in
parables was left to the disciples of the high Initiates.It was their
duty to follow the key-note of the Secret
Teaching without revealing its mysteries.This is shown in the
histories of all the great Adepts.Pythagoras
divided his classes into hearers of exoteric and esoteric
lectures.The Magians received their
instructions and were initiated in the far hidden caves of Bactria.
When Josephus declares that Abraham taught
Mathematics he meant by it “Magic,” for in the
Pythagorean code Mathematics mean Esoteric
Science or Gnosis.
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Professor Wilder remarks:
The Essenes of Judea and Carmel made similar
distinctions,dividing their adherents into
neophytes,brethren and the perfect
....Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to
divulge his higher doctrines,except to those
who had been thoroughly instructed and
exercised [prepared for initiation ].[New Platonism and Alchemy,1869.pp.7.9.]
One of the most powerful reasons for the
necessity of strict secresy is given by Jesus Himself if one may
credit Matthew.For there the Master is made to
say plainly:
Give not that which is holy unto the
dogs,neither cast ye your pearls before swine;lest they
trample them under their feet and turn again
and rend you.[vii.6.]
Profoundly true and wise words.Many are those
in our own age and even among us,who have been
forcibly reminded of them -often when too
late.[ History is full of proofs
of the same.Had not
Anaxagoras enunciated the great truth taught
in the Mysteries,viz .that the sun was surely larger than
the Peloponnesus,he would not have been
persecuted and nearly put to death by the fanatical mob.Had
that other rabble which was raised against
Pythagoras understood what the mysterious Sage of Crotona
meant by giving out his remembrances of having
been the “Son of Mercury ” -God of the Secret Wisdom
-he would not have been forced to fly for his
life:nor would Socrates have been put to death had he
kept secret the revelations of his divine
Daimon.He knew how little his century -save those initiated -
would understand his meaning had he given out
all he knew of the moon.Thus he limited his statement
to an allegory which is now proven to have
been more scientific than was hitherto believed.He
maintained that the moon was inhabited and
that the lunar beings lived in profound vast and dark
valleys,our satellite being airless and
without any atmosphere outside such profound valleys;this,
disregarding the revelation full of meaning
for the few only must be so of necessity.If there is any
atmosphere on our bright Selene at all.The
facts recorded is the secret annals of the Mysteries had to
remain veiled under penalty of death.]
(Page 46)Even Maimonides recommends silence with regard
to the true meaning of the Bible texts.This
injunction destroys the usual affirmation that
“Holy Writ ” is the only book in the world whose divine
oracles contain plain unvarnished truth.It may
be so for the learned Kabalists;it is certainly quite the
reverse with regard to Christians.For this is
what the learned Hebrew Philosopher says:
Whoever shall find out the true sense of the
Book of Genesis ought to take care not to divulge
it.This is a maxim that all our sages repeat
to us,and above all respecting the work of the six
days.If a person should discover the true meaning
of it by himself or by the aid of another
then he ought to be silent or if he speaks he
ought to speak of it obscurely in an enigmatical
manner as I do myself leaving the rest to be
guessed by those who can understand me.
The Symbology and Esoterism of the Old
Testament being thus confessed by one of the greatest Jewish
Philosophers,it is only natural to find
Christian Fathers making the same confession with regard to the
New Testament and the Bible in general.Thus we find Clemens
Alexandrinus and Origen admitting it as
plainly as words can do it.Clemens,who had
been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries says,that:
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The doctrines there taught contained in them the
end of all instructions as they were taken
from Moses and the prophets,
a slight perversion of facts pardonable in the
good Father.The words admit after all that the Mysteries
of the Jews were identical with those of the
Pagan Greeks,who took them from the Egyptians,who
borrowed them in their turn from the Chaldaeans,who
got them from the Aryans,the Atlanteans and so
on -far beyond the days of that Race.The
secret meaning of the Gospel is again openly confessed by
Clemens when he says that the Mysteries of the
Faith are not to be divulged to all.
But since this tradition is not published
alone for him who perceives the magnificence of the
word;it is requisite therefore to hide in a
Mystery the wisdom spoken which the Son of God
taught.[
Stromateis,xii.]
Origen on “Genesis ” -(Page 47)Not less explicit is Origen with regard to the Bible and
its symbolical
fables.He exclaims:
If we hold to the letter and must understand
what stands written in the law after the manner of
the Jews and common people then I should blush
to confess aloud that it is God who has
given these laws;then the laws of men appear
more excellent and reasonable.[See
Homilies
7.quoted in the So rce of Measures,p.307.]
And well he might have “blushed ” the sincere
and honest Father of early Christianity in its days of
relative purity.But the Christians of this
highly literary and civilised age of ours do not blush at all;they
swallow on the contrary the “light ” before
the formation of the sun the Garden of Eden Jonah ’s whale
and all notwithstanding that the same Origen
asks in a very natural fit of indignation:
What man of sense will agree with the
statement that the first second and third days in which
the evening is named and the morning
were without sun moon and stars,and the first day
without a heaven?What man is found such an
idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in
Paradise in Eden like a husbandman etc?I
believe that every man must hold these things
for images,under which a hidden sense lies
concealed.[ Origen:Huet.Origeniana,167:
quoted from Dunlop ’s Sid .p.176 .]
Yet millions of “such idiots ” are found in
our age of enlightenment and not only in the third century.When
Paul ’s unequivocal statement in Galatians,iv.22-25
that the story of Abraham and his two sons is all “an
allegory.” and that “Agar is Mount Sinai ” is
added to this,then little blame indeed can be attached to
either Christian or Heathen who declines to
accept the Bible in any other light than that of a very
ingenious allegory.
Rabbi Simeon Ben-“Jochai ” the compiler of the
Zohar never imparted the most important points of his
doctrine otherwise than orally and to a very
limited number of disciples.Therefore without the final
initiation into the Mercavah the study
of the Kabalah will be ever incomplete and the Mercavah can be
taught only “in darkness,in a deserted place
and after many and terrific trials.” Since the death of that
great Jewish Initiate this hidden doctrine has
remained for the outside world an inviolate secret.
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Among the venerable sect of the Tanaim or
rather the Tananim the wise men there were
those who taught the secrets practically and
initiated some disciples into the grand and final
Mystery.But the Mishna Hagiga,2 nd
Section say that the table of contents of the Mercaba
“must only be delivered to wise old ones.”The Gemara
is still more dogmatic.“The more
important secrets of the Mysteries (Page 48)were not even revealed to all priests.Alone
the
initiates had them divulged.” And so we find
the same great secresy prevalent in every ancient
religion.[ Isis Unveiled ii.350 .]
What says the Kabalah itself?Its great
Rabbis actually threaten him who accepts their sayings verbatim.
We read in the Zohar :
Woe to the man who sees in the Thorah i.e.,Law
only simple recitals and ordinary words!
Because if in truth it only contained these we
would even today be able to compose a Thorah
much more worthy of admiration.For if we find
only the simple words we would only have to
address ourselves to the legislators of the
earth.[ The materialistic
“law-givers ”the critics and
Sadducees who have tried to tear to shreds the
doctrines and teachings of the great Asiatic
Masters past and present -no scholars in the
modern sense of the word -would do well to
ponder over these words.No doubt that
doctrines and secret teachings had they been
invented and written in Oxford and Cambridge
would be more brilliant outwardly.Would they
equally answer to universal truths and facts
is the next question however .] to
those in whom
we most frequently meet with the most
grandeur.It would be sufficient to imitate them and
make a Thorah after their words and
example.But it is not so;each word of the Thorah
contains an elevated meaning and a sublime
mystery....The recitals of the Thorah are the
vestments of the Thorah.Woe to him who takes
this garment for the Thorah itself ....The
simple notice only of the garments or recitals
of the Thorah they know of no other thing they
see not that which is concealed under the
vestment.The more instructed men do not pay
attention to the vestment but to the body
which it envelops.[ iii.fol.1526
quoted in Myer ’s
Qabbalah,p.102.]
Ammonius Saccas taught that the Secret
Doctrine of the Wisdom-Religion was found complete in the
Books of Thoth (Hermes),from which both Pythagoras and Plato derived their
knowledge and much of
their Philosophy;and these Books were declared
by him to be “identical with the teachings of the Sages
of the remote East.” Professor A.Wilder
remarks:
As the name Thoth means a college or assembly
it is not altogether improbable that the books
were so named as being the collected oracles
and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of
Memphis.Rabbi Wise has suggested the same
hypothesis in relation to the divine utterances
recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.[ New-Platonism and Alchemy.p.6
]
This is very probable.Only the “divine
utterances ” have never been so far understood by the profane.
Philo Judaeus,a non-initiate attempted to give
their secret meaning and -failed.
But Books of Thoth or Bible,Vedas or
Kabalah,all enjoin the same secresy as to certain mysteries of
nature symbolised in them.“Woe be to him who
divulges nlawf lly the words whispered into the ear of
Manushi by the First Initiator.”
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The “Dark Sayings ” of the “Testaments ” (Page 49)Who that “Initiator ” was is made plain in the
Book of
Enoch:
From them [the angels ] I heard all things,and
understood what I saw that which will not take
place in this generation [Race ] but in a
generation which is to succeed at a distant period [ the
6 th and 7 th Races ]
on account of the elect [the Initiates ].[ i.2.]
Again it is said with regard to the judgment
of those who when they have learned “every secret of the
angels,” reveal them that:
They have discovered secrets,and they are those
who have been judged;but not thou my
son [Noah ] ...thou art pure and good and free
from the reproach of discovering [revealing ]
secrets.[ IXIV.10.]
But there are those in our century who having
“discovered secrets ” unaided and owing to their own
learning and acuteness only and who being
nevertheless,honest and straightforward men undismayed
by threats or warning since they have never
pledged themselves to secresy feel quite startled at such
revelations.One of these is the learned author
and discoverer of one “Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian
Mystery.” As he says,there are “some strange
features connected to the promulgation and condition ” of
the Bible.
Those who compiled this book were men as we
are.They knew saw handled and realized
through the key measure [ The key is shown to be “in the
source of measures originating the
British inch and the ancient cubit ”as the
author tries to prove.] the law of the living ever active
God .[
The word as a plural might have better solved the mystery.God is ever-present
;if he
were ever-active he could no longer be
an infinite God -nor ever-present in his limitation.]
They needed no faith that He was that He
worked planned and accomplished as a mighty
mechanic and architect.[The author is evidently a Mason of the way of thinking of General
Pike.So long as the American and English
Masons will reject the “Creative Principle ”of the
“Grand Orient ”of France they will remain in
the dark.]What was it then that
reserved to them
alone this knowledge while first as men of God
and second as Apostles of Jesus the Christ
they doled out a blinding ritual service and
an empty teaching of faith and no substance as
proof properly coming through the exercise of
just those senses which the Deity has given all
men as the essential means of obtaining any
right understanding?Mystery and parable,and
dark saying,and cloaking of the true meanings are the burden of
the Testaments,Old and
New.Take it that the narratives of the Bible
were purposed inventions to deceive the ignorant
masses,even while enforcing a most perfect
code of moral obligations:How is it possible to
justify so great frauds,as part of the Divine
economy when to that economy the attribute of
simple and perfect truthf lness must in
the nature of things,be (Page
50)ascribed?What
has,
or what by possibility ought mystery to have
with the promulgation of the truths of God?[
So rce of Measures,pp.308 309 ]
Nothing whatever most certainly if those
mysteries had been given from the first.And so it was with
regard to the first semi-divine pure and
spiritual Races of Humanity.They had the “truths of God ” and
lived up to them and their ideals.They
preserved them so long as there was hardly any evil and hence
scarcely a possible abuse of that knowledge
and those truths.But evolution and the gradual fall into
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materiality is also one of the “truths ” and
also one of the laws of “God.” And as mankind progressed and
became with every generation more of the earth
earthly the individuality of each temporary Ego began
to assert itself.It is personal selfishness
that develops and urges man on to abuse of his knowledge and
power.And selfishness is a human building
whose windows and doors are ever wide open for every kind
of iniquity to enter into man ’s soul.Few were
the men during the early adolescence of mankind and
fewer still are they now who feel disposed to
put into practice Pope ’s forcible declaration that he would
tear out his own heart if it had no better
disposition than to love only himself and laugh at all his
neighbours.Hence the necessity of gradually
taking away from man the divine knowledge and power
which became with every new human cycle more
dangerous as a double-edged weapon whose evil side
was ever threatening one ’s neighbour and
whose power for good was lavished freely only upon self.
Those few “elect ” whose inner natures had
remained unaffected by their outward physical growth thus
became in time the sole guardians of the
mysteries revealed passing the knowledge to those most fit to
receive it and keeping it inaccessible to
others.Reject this explanation from the Secret Teachings,and
the very name of Religion will become
synonymous with deception and fraud.
Yet the masses could not be allowed to remain
without some sort of moral restraint.Man is ever craving
for a “beyond ”and cannot live without an idea
of some kind as a beacon and a consolation.At the same
time no average man even in our age of
universal education could be entrusted with truths too
metaphysical too subtle for his mind to
comprehend without the danger of an imminent reaction setting
in and faith in Gods and Saints making room
for an unscientific blank Atheism.No real philanthropist
hence no Occultist would dream for a moment of
a mankind without one title of Religion.
The Greatest Crime Ever Perpetrated -(Page 51)Even the modern day Religion in Europe
confined to
Sundays,is better than none.But if as Bunyan
put it “Religion is the best armour that a man can have ”
it certainly is the “worst cloak ” ;and it is
that “cloak ” and false pretence which the Occultists and the
Theosophists fight against.The true ideal
Deity the one living God in Nature can never suffer in man ’s
worship if that outward cloak woven by man ’s
fancy and thrown upon the Deity by the crafty hand of the
priest greedy of power and domination is drawn
aside.The hour has struck with the commencement of
this century to dethrone the “highest God ” of
every nation in favour of One Universal Deity -The God of
Immutable Law not charity;the God of Just
Retribution not mercy which is merely an incentive to evil-
doing and to a repetition of it.The greatest
crime that was ever perpetrated upon mankind was
committed on that day when the first priest
invented the first prayer with a selfish object in view.A God
who may be propitiated by iniquitous prayers
to “bless the arms ” of the worshipper and send defeat and
death to thousands of his enemies -his
brethren;a Deity that can be supposed not to turn a deaf ear to
chants of laudation mixed with entreaties for
a “fair propitious wind ”for self and as naturally disastrous to
the selves of other navigators who come from
an opposite direction -it is this idea of God that has
fostered selfishness in man and deprived him
of his self-reliance.Prayer is an ennobling action when it
is an intense feeling an ardent desire rushing
forth from our very heart for the good of other people and
when entirely detached from any selfish
personal object;the craving for a beyond is natural and holy in
man but on the condition of sharing that bliss
with others.One can understand and well appreciate the
words of the “heathen ”Socrates,who declared
in his profound though untaught wisdom that:
Our prayers should be for blessings on all in
general for the Gods know best what is good for
us.
But official prayer -in favour of a public
calamity or for the benefit of one individual irrespective of losses
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to thousands -is the most ignoble of
crimes,besides being an impertinent conceit and a superstition.
This is the direct inheritance by spoliation
from the Jehovites -the Jews of the Wilderness and of the
Golden Calf.
It is “Jehovah ” as will be presently shown
that suggested the necessity of veiling and screening this
substitute for the unpronounceable name and
that led to all this “mystery parables,dark sayings (Page
52)and cloaking.” Moses had at any rate initiated
his seventy Elders into the hidden truths,and thus the
writers of the Old Testament stand to a
degree justified.Those of the New Testament have failed to do
even so much or so little.They have disfigured
the grand central figure of Christ by their dogmas,and
have led people ever since into millions of
errors and the darkest crimes,in His holy name.
It is evident that with the exception of Paul
and Clement of Alexandria who had been both initiated into
the Mysteries,none of the Fathers knew much of
the truth themselves.They were mostly uneducated
ignorant people;and if such as Augustine and
Lactantius,or again the Venerable Bede and others,were
so painfully ignorant until the name of
Galileo [ In his Pne
matologie,in Vol.iv.pp.105-112 the Marquis
de Mirville claims the knowledge of the
heliocentric system -earlier than Galileo -for Pope Urban VIII.
The author goes further.He tries to show that
famous Pope not as the persecutor but as one persecuted
by Galileo and calumniated by the Florentine
Astronomer into the bargain.If so so much the worse for
the Latin Church since her Popes,knowing of it
still preserved silence upon this most important fact
either to screen Joshua or their own
infallibility.One can understand well that the Bible having been so
exalted over all the other systems,and its
alleged monotheism depending upon the silence preserved
nothing remained of course but to keep quiet
over its symbolism thus allowing all its blunders to be
fathered on its God.] of the most vital truths taught in the Pagan temples -of the
rotundity of the earth for
example leaving the heliocentric system out of
question -how great must have been the ignorance of
the rest!Learning the accusations of dealing
with the Devil lavished on the Pagan Philosophers.
But truth must out.The Occultists,referred to
as “the followers of the accursed Cain ” by such writers as
De Mirville are now in a position to reverse
the tables.That which was hitherto known only to the ancient
and modern Kabalists in Europe and Asia is now
published and shown as being mathematically true.
The author of the Key to the
Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery or the So rce of Meas res has now proved to
general satisfaction it is to be hoped that
the two great God-names,Jehovah and Elohim stood in one
meaning of their numerical values,for a
diameter and a circumference value respectively;in other
words,that they are numerical indices of
geometrical relations;and finally that Jehovah is Cain and vice
versa.
This view says the author
Helps also to take the horrid blemish off from
the name of Cain as a put-up-job to destroy his
character;for even without these showings,by
the very text he [Cain ] was Jehovah.So the
theological schools had better be alive to
making the amend honorable if such a thing is
possible to the good name and fame of the God
they worship
Asiatic Religions Proclaim Their Esoterism Openly -(Page 53)[ Op.cit .App.vii.p.296.The writer
feels happy to find this fact now
mathematically demonstrated.When it was stated in Isis Unveiled that
Jehovah and Saturn were one and the same with
Adam Kadmon Cain Adam and Eve Able Seth.etc.
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and that all were convertible symbols in the
Secret Doctrine (see Vol ii.pp.446 448 464 et seq .):that
they answered in short to secret numerals and
stood for more than one meaning in the Bible as in other
doctrines -the author ’s statements remained
unnoticed.Isis had failed to appear under a scientific form
and by giving it too much in fact gave very
little to satisfy the enquirer.But now if mathematics and
geometry besides the evidence of the Bible and
Kabalah are good for anything the public must find itself
satisfied.No fuller more scientifically given
proof can be found to show that Cain is the transformation of
an Elohim (the Sephira Binah)into Jah-Veh (or
God-Eve)androgyne and that Seth is the Jehovah male
than in the combined discoveries of Seyffarth
Knight etc.and finally in Mr.Ralston Skinner ’s most
erudite work.The further relations of these
personifications of the first human races,in their gradual
development will be given later on in the
text.]
This is not the first warning received by the
“theological schools.” which however no doubt knew it from
the beginning as did Clemens of Alexandria and
others.But if it be so they will profit still less by it as the
admission would involve more for them than the
mere sacredness and dignity of the established faith.
But it may also be asked why is it that the
Asiatic religions,which have nothing of this sort to conceal
and which proclaim quite openly the Esoterism
of their doctrines,follow the same course?It is simply
this:While the present and no doubt enforced
silence of the Church on this subject relates merely to the
external or theoretical form of the Bible -the
unveiling of the secrets of which would have involved no
practical harm had they been explained from
the first -it is an entirely different question with Eastern
Esoterism and Symbology.The grand central
figure of the Gospels would have remained as unaffected
by the symbolism of the Old Testament being
revealed as would that of the Founder of Buddhism had
the Brahmanical writings of the P ranas,that
preceded his birth all been shown to be allegorical.Jesus
of Nazareth moreover would have gained more than
he would have lost had he been presented as a
simple mortal left to be judged on his own
precepts and merits,instead of being fathered on Christendom
as a God whose many utterances and acts are
now so open to criticism.On the other hand the symbols
and allegorical sayings that veil the grand
truths of Nature in the Vedas,the Brahmanas,the Upanishads
and especially in the Lamaist Chagpa
Thogmed and other works,are quite of a different nature and far
more complicated in their secret meaning.While
the Biblical glyphs have nearly all a triune foundation
those of the Eastern books are worked on the
septenary principle.They are (Page 54)as closely related to
the mysteries of Physics and Physiology as to
Psychism and the transcendental nature of cosmic
elements and Theogony;unriddled they would
prove more than injurious to the uninitiated;delivered into
the hands of the present generations in their
actual state of physical and intellectual development in the
absence of spirituality and even of practical
morality they would become absolutely disastrous.
Nevertheless the secret teachings of the
sanctuaries have not remained without witness;they have been
made immortal in various ways.They have burst
upon the world in hundreds of volumes full of the quaint
head-breaking phraseology of the
Alchemist;they have flashed like irrepressible cataracts of Occult
mystic lore from the pens of poets and
bards.Genius alone had certain privileges in those dark ages
when no dreamer could offer the world even a
fiction without suiting his heaven and his earth to biblical
text.To genius alone it was permitted in those
centuries of mental blindness,when the fear of the “Holy
Office ” threw a thick veil over every cosmic
and psychic truth to reveal unimpeded some of the grandest
truths of Initiation.Whence did Ariosto in his
Orlando F rioso,obtain his conception of that valley of the
Moon where after our death we can find the
ideas and images of all that exists on earth?How came
Dante to imagine the many descriptions given
in his Inferno -a new Johannine Apolcalypse a true Occult
Revelation in verse -his visit and communion
with the Souls of the Seven Spheres?In poetry and satire
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every Occult truth has been welcomed -none has
been recognised as serious.The Comte de Gabalis is
better known and appreciated than Porphyry and
Iamblichus.Plato ’s mysterious Atlantis is proclaimed a
fiction while Noah ’s Deluge is to this day on
the brain of certain Archaeologists who scoff at the
archetypal world of Marcel Palingenius ’ Zodiac
and would resent as a personal injury being asked to
discuss the four worlds of Mercury
Trismegistus -the Archetypal the Spiritual the Astral and the
Elementary with three others behind the opened
scene.Evidently civilised society is still but half
prepared for the revelation.Hence the
Initiates will never give out the whole secret until the bulk of
mankind has changed its actual nature and is
better prepared for truth.Clemens Alexandrinus was
positively right in saying “It is requisite to
hide in a mystery the wisdom spoken ” -which the “Sons of
God ”teach.
That Wisdom as will be seen relates to all the
primeval truths delivered to the first Races,the “Mind-
born ”by the “Builders ”of the Universe
themselves.
The Wisdom-Religion -(Page 55)There was in every ancient country having claims to
civilisation an
Esoteric Doctrine a system which was
designated WISDOM [ The writings
extant in olden times often
personified Wisdom as an emanation and
associate of the Creator.Thus we have the Hindu Buddha the
Babylonian Nebo the Thoth of Memphis,the
Hermes of Greece:also the female divinities,Neitha Metis,
Athena and the Gnostic potency Achamoth or
Sophia.The Samaritan Pentate ch denominated the
Book of Genesis,Akamouth or Wisdom and two remnants of old treatises,the Wisdom
of Solomon and
the Wisdom of Jesus,relate to the same
matters.The Book of Mashalim -the Disco rses of Proverbs of
Solomon -thus personifies Wisdom as the
auxiliary of the Creator.In the Secret Wisdom of the East that
auxiliary is found collectively in the first
emanations of Primeval Light the Seven Dhyani-Chohans,who
have been shown to be identical with the
“Seven Spirits of the Presence ” of the Roman Catholics.] and
those who were devoted to its prosecution were
first denominated sages,or wise men...Pythagoras
termed this system çãíùóéò ôùí äíôùí the
Gnosis or Knowledge of things that are.Under the noble
designation of WISDOM the ancient teachers,the
sages of India the magians of Persia and Babylon
the seers and prophets of Israel the
hierophants of Egypt and Arabia and the philosophers of Greece
and the West included all knowledge which they
considered as essentially divine;classifying a part as
esoteric and the remainder as exterior.The
Rabbis called the exterior and secular series the Mercavah
as being the body or vehicle which contained
the higher knowledge.[New
Platonism and Alchemy,p.6 .]
Later on we shall speak of the law of silence
imposed on eastern chelâs.
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SECTION V
Some Reasons for Secrecy
(Page 56)The fact that the Occult Sciences have been
withheld from the world at large and denied by the
Initiates to Humanity has often been made
matter of complaint.It has been alleged that the Guardians of
the Secret Lore were selfish in withholding
the “treasures ” of Archaic Wisdom;that it was positively
criminal to keep back such knowledge -“if any
” -from the men of Science etc.
Yet there must have been some very good
reasons for it since from the very dawn of History such has
been the policy of every Hierophant and
“Master.”Pythagoras,the first Adept and real Scientist in pre-
Christian Europe is accused of having taught
in public the immobility of the earth and the rotary motion
of the stars around it while he was declaring
to his privileged Adepts his belief in the motion of the Earth
as a planet and in the heliocentric system.The
reasons for such secresy however are many and were
never made a mystery of.The chief cause as
given in Isis Unveiled .It may now be repeated.
From the very day when the first mystic,taught
by the first Instructor of the “divine Dynasties ”
of the early races,was taught the means of communication
between this world and the worlds
of the invisible host between the sphere of
matter and that of pure spirit he concluded that to
abandon this mysterious science to the
desecration willing or unwilling of the profane rabble -
was to lose it.An abuse of it might lead
mankind to speedy destruction;it was like surrounding
a group of children with explosive
substances,and furnishing them with matches.The first
divine Instructor initiated but a select few
and these kept silence with the multitudes.They
recognised their “God ”and each Adept
felt the great “SELF ”within
himself.The Atman the
Self the mighty Lord and Protector once that
man knew him as the “ I am ”the “Ego Sum ”the
“Asmi ”showed his full power to him who could
recognise the “still small voice.” From the days
of the primitive man described by the first
Vedic poet down to our modern age there has not
been a philosopher worthy of that name who did
not carry in the silent sanctuary of his heart
the grand and mysterious truth.If initiated he
learnt it as a sacred science;if otherwise then
like Socrates,repeating to himself as well as
his fellow-men the noble injunction “ O man
know thyself ” he succeeded in recognising his
God within himself.
The Key of Practical Theurgy -
(Page 57)“Ye are Gods,”the king-psalmist tells us,and
we find Jesus reminding the scribes
that this expression was addressed to other
mortal men claiming for themselves the same
privilege without any blasphemy.And as a
faithful echo Paul while asserting that we are all
“the temple of the living God ” cautiously
remarked elsewhere that after all these things are
only for the “wise ” and it is “unlawful ”to
speak of them.[ ii.317 318.Many
verbal alterations
from the original text of Isis Unveiled were
made by H.P.B.in her quotations therefrom and
these are followed throughout.]
Some of the reasons for this secresy may be
given.
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The fundamental law and master-key of
practical Theurgy in its chief applications to the serious study of
cosmic and sidereal of psychic and spiritual
mysteries was,and still is,that which was called by the
Greek Neoplatonist “Theophania.” In its generally-accepted
meaning this is “communication between the
Gods (or God)and those initiated mortals who
are spiritually fit to enjoy such an intercourse.”
Esoterically however it signifies more than
this.For it is not only the presence of a God but an actual -
howbeit temporary -incarnation the blending so
to say of the personal Deity the Higher Self with man -
its representative or agent on earth.As a
general law the Highest God the Over-soul of the human being
(Atma-Buddhi),only overshadows the individual
during his life for purposes of instruction and revelation;
or as Roman Catholics -who erroneously call
that Over-soul the “Guardian Angel ” -would say “It stands
outside and watches.” But in the case of the
theophanic mystery it incarnates itself in the Theurgist for
purposes of revelation.When the incarnation is
temporary during those mysterious trances or “ecstasy ”
which Plotinus defined as
The liberation of the mind from its finite
consciousness,becoming one and identified with the
Infinite
this sublime condition is very short.The human
soul being the offspring or emanation of its God the
“Father and the Son ” become one “the divine
fountain flowing like a stream into its human bed.”
[ Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six
times during his mystic life:Porphyry
asserts that Appollonius of Tyana was thus
united four times to his deity -a statement which we believe
to be a mistake since Apollonius was a
Nirmanakaya (divine incarnation -not Avatara)-and he
(Porphyry)only once when over sixty years of
age.Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to
man),Theopathy (or “assimilation of divine
nature ”),and Theopneusty (inspiration or rather the
mysterious power to hear orally the teachings
of a God)have never been rightly understood.] In
exceptional cases,however the mystery becomes
complete;the (Page 58)Word is made Flesh
in real
fact the individual becoming divine in the
full sense of the term since his personal God has made of him
his permanent life-long tabernacle -“the
temple of God ”as Paul says.
Now that which is meant here by the personal
God of Man is,of course not his seventh Principle alone
as per se and in essence that is merely
a bean of the infinite Ocean of Light.In conjunction with our
Divine Soul the Buddhi it cannot be called a
Duad as it otherwise might since though formed from
Atma and Buddhi (the two higher
Principles),the former is no entity but an emanation from the Absolute
and indivisible in reality from it.The personal
God is not the Monad but indeed the prototype of the latter
what for want of a better term we call the manifested
Karanatma [ Karana Sharira
is the “causal ” body
and is sometimes said to be the “personal
God.” And so it is,in one sense.] (Causal
Soul),one of the
“seven ” and chief reservoirs of the human
Monads or Egos.The latter are gradually formed and
strengthened during their incarnation-cycle by
constant additions of individuality from the personalities in
which incarnates that androgynous,half-spiritual
half-terrestrial principle partaking of both heaven and
earth called by the Vedantins Jiva and
Vijnanamaya Kosha and by the Occultists the Manas (mind);
that in short which uniting itself partially
with the Monad incarnates in each new birth.In perfect unity
with its (seventh)Principle the Spirit
unalloyed it is the divine Higher Self as every student of
Theosophy knows.After every new incarnation
Buddhi-Manas culls,so to say the aroma of the flower
called personality the purely earthly residue
of which its dregs -is left to fade out as a shadow.This is
the most difficult -because so
transcendentally metaphysical -portion of the doctrine.
As is repeated many a time in this and other
works,it is not the Philosophers,Sages,and Adepts of
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antiquity who can ever be charged with
idolatry.It is they in fact who recognising divine unity were the
only ones,owing to their initiation into the
mysteries of Esotericism to understand correctly the
õðóíóéá(hyponea),or under-meaning of the
anthropomorphism of the so-called Angels,Gods,and
Spiritual Beings of every kind.Each
worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the whole world
of Nature reverenced but never worshipped or
idolised any of these “Gods,” whether high or low -not
even his own personal Deity of which he was a
Ray and to whom he appealed.[ This
would be in one
sense Self-worship.]
The Ladder of Being -
(Page 59)The holy Triad emanates from the One and is
the Tetraktys;the gods,daimons,and
souls are an emanation of the Triad.Heroes and
men repeat the hierarchy in themselves.
Thus said Metrodorus of Chios,the Pythagorean
the latter part of the sentence meaning that man has
within himself the seven pale reflections of
the seven divine Hierarchies;his Higher Self is,therefore in
itself but the refracted beam of the direct
Ray.He who regards the latter as an Entity in the usual sense
of the term is one of the “infidels and
atheists,” spoken of by Epicurus,for he fastens on that God “the
opinions of the multitude ” -an
anthropomorphism of the grossest kind.[“The
Gods exist ” said Epicurus,
“but they are not what the hoi polloi (the
multitude)suppose them to be.He is not an infidel or atheist
who denies the existence of Gods whom the
multitude worship but he is such who fastens on the Gods
the opinions of the multitude.” ] The Adept and the Occultist know
that “what are styled the Gods are only
the first principles ” (Aristotle).None the
less they are intelligent conscious,and living “Principles,” the
Primary Seven Lights manifested from
Light nmanifested -which to us is Darkness.They are the Seven
-exoterically four -Kumaras or “Mind-Born Sons
” of Brahma.And it is they again the Dhyan Chohans,
who are the prototypes in the aeonic eternity
of lower Gods and hierarchies of divine Beings,at the
lowest end of which ladder of being are we
-men.
Thus perchance Polytheism when philosophically
understood may be a degree higher than even the
Monotheism of the Protestant say who limits
and conditions the Deity in whom he persists in seeing the
Infinite but whose supposed actions make of
that “Absolute and Infinite ” the most absurd paradox in
Philosophy.From this standpoint Roman
Catholicism itself is immeasurably higher and more logical than
Protestantism though the Roman Church has been
pleased to adopt the exotericism of the heathen
“multitude ”and to reject the Philosophy of
pure Esotericism.
Thus every mortal has his immortal counterpart
or rather his Archetype in heaven.This means that the
former is indissolubly united to the latter in
each of his incarnations,and for the duration of the cycle of
births;only it is by the spiritual and
intellectual Principle in him entirely distinct from the lower self never
through the earthly personality.Some of these
are even liable to break the union altogether in case of
absence in the moral individual of binding viz.,of
spiritual ties.Truly as Paracelsus puts it in his quaint
tortured (Page 60)phraseology man with his three (compound)Spirits is
suspended like a foetus by all
three to the matrix of the Macrocosm;the
thread which holds him united being the “Thread-Soul ”
Sutratma and Taijasa (the “Shining ” )of the
Vedantins.And it is through this spiritual and intellectual
Principle in man though Taijasa -the Shining
“because it has the luminous internal organ as its
associate ” -that man is thus united to his
heavenly prototype never through his lower inner self or Astral
Body for which there remains in most cases
nothing but to fade out.
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Occultism or Theurgy teaches the means of
producing such union.But it is the actions of man -his
personal merit alone -that can produce it on
earth or determine its duration.This lasts from a few
seconds -a flash -to several hours,during
which time the Theurgist or Theophanist is that
overshadowing “God ” himself;hence he becomes
endowed for the time being with relative omniscience
and omnipotence.With such perfect
(divine)Adepts as Buddha [ Esoteric,as
exoteric,Buddhism rejects
the theory that Gautama was an incarnation or
Avatara of Vishnu but teaches the doctrine as herein
explained.Every man has in him the
materials,if not the conditions,for theophanic intercourse and
Theopneusty the inspiring “God ”being however
in every case his own Higher Self or divine prototype .]
and others such a hypostatical state of
avataric condition may last during the whole life;whereas in the
case of full Initiates,who have not yet
reached the perfect state of Jivanmukta [
One entirely and
absolutely purified and having nothing in
common with earth except his body.] Theopneusty
when in full
sway results for the high Adept in a full
recollection of everything seen heard or sensed.
Taijasa has fruition of the supersensible .[ Mand kyopanishad,4.]
For one less perfect it will end only in a
partial indistinct remembrance;while the beginner has to face in
the first period of his psychic experiences a
mere confusion followed by a rapid and finally complete
oblivion of the mysteries seen during this
super-hypnotic condition.The degree of recollection when one
returns to his waking state and physical
senses,depends on his spiritual and psychic purification the
greatest enemy of spiritual memory being man
’s physical brain the organ of his sensuous nature.
The above states are described for a clearer
comprehension of terms used in this work.There are so
many and such various conditions and states
that even a Seer is liable to confound one with the other.
Three Ways Open to the Adept -(Page 61)To repeat:the Greek,rarely-used word
“Theophania ” meant
more with the Neoplatonists than it does with
the modern maker of dictionaries.The compound word
Theophania ” (from “theos,” “God ” and
“phainomai ” “to appear),” does not simply mean “ a manifestation
of God to man by act al appearance ”
-an absurdity by the way -but the actual presence of a God in
man a divine incarnation.When Simon the
Magician claimed to be “God the Father ” what he wanted to
convey was just that which has been explained
namely that he was a divine incarnation of his own
Father whether we see in the latter an Angel a
God or a Spirit;therefore he was called “that power of
God which is called great ” [ Acts viii 10 (Revised
Version).] or that power which
causes the Divine Self
to enshrine itself in its lower self -man.
This is one of the several mysteries of being
and incarnation.Another is that when an Adept reaches
during his lifetime that state of holiness and
purity that makes him “equal to the Angels,” then at death his
apparitional or astral body becomes as solid
and tangible as was the late body and is transformed into
the real man.[ See the explanations given on the subject in “The Elixir of
Life ” by G.M.(From a Chela ’s
Diary),Five Years of Theosophy.] The old physical body falling off
like the cast-off serpent ’s skin the
body of the “new ” man remains either visible
or at the option of the Adept disappears from view
surrounded as it is by the Akashic shell that
screens it.In the latter case there are three ways open to the
Adept:
(1)He may remain in the earth ’s sphere (Vayu
or Kama-loka),in that ethereal locality concealed from
human sight save during flashes of
clairvoyance.In this case his astral body owing to its great purity and
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spirituality having lost the conditions
required for Akashic light (the nether or terrestrial ether)to absorb
its semi-material particles,the Adept will
have to remain in the company of disintegrating shells -doing
no good or useful work.This,of course cannot
be.
(2)He can by a supreme effort of will merge
entirely into and get united with his Monad.By doing so
however we would (a)deprive his Higher Self of
posthumous Samadhi -a bliss which is not real Nirvana
-the astral however pure being too earthly for
such state;and (b)he would thereby open himself to
Karmic law;the action being in fact the outcome
of personal selfishness -of reaping the fruits produced
by and for oneself -alone.
(3)The Adept has the option of renouncing
conscious Nirvana and (Page
62)rest
to work on earth for the
good of mankind.This he can do in a two-fold
way:either as above said by consolidating his astral body
into physical appearance he can reassume the
self-same personality;or he can avail himself of an
entirely new physical body whether that of a
newly-born infant or -as Shânkarâcharya is reported to
have done with the body of a dead Rajah -by
entering a deserted sheath ” and living in it as long as he
chooses.This is what is called “continuous
existence.” The Section entitled “The Mystery about Buddha ”
will throw additional light on this theory to
the profane incomprehensible or to the generality simply
absurd .Such
is the doctrine taught everyone having the choice of either fathoming it still
deeper or of
leaving it unnoticed.
The above is simply a small portion of what
might have been given in Isis Unveiled had the time come
then as it has now.One cannot study and profit
by Occult Science unless one gives himself up to it -
heart soul and body.Some of its truths are too
awful too dangerous,for the average mind.None can
toy and play with such terrible weapons with
impunity.Therefore it is,as St.Paul has it “unlawful ” to
speak of them.Let us accept the reminder and
talk only of that which is “lawful.”
The quotation on p.56 relates,moreover only to
psychic or spiritual Magic.The practical teachings of
Occult Science are entirely different and few
are the strong minds fitted for them.As to ecstasy and
such like kinds of self-illumination this may
be obtained by oneself and without any teacher or initiation
for ecstasy is reached by an inward command
and control of Self over the physical Ego;as to obtaining
mastery over the forces of Nature this
requires a long training or the capacity of one born a “natural
Magician.” Meanwhile those who possess neither
of the requisite qualifications are strongly advised to
limit themselves to purely spiritual
development.But even this is difficult as the first necessary
qualification is an unshakable belief in one
’s own powers and the Deity within oneself;otherwise a man
would simply develop into an irresponsible
medium.Throughout the whole mystic literature of the ancient
world we detect the same idea of spiritual
Esoterism that the personal God exists within nowhere
outside the worshipper.That personal Deity is
no vain breath or a fiction but an immortal Entity the
Initiator of the Initiates,now that the
heavenly or Celestial Initiators of primitive humanity -the Shishta of
the preceding cycles -are no more among
us.Like an undercurrent rapid and clear it runs without
mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy
troubled waters of dogmatism an enforced anthropomorphic
Deity and religious intolerance.
Man is God -(Page 63)We find this idea in the tortured and barbarous phraseology
of the Codex
Nazarae s,and in the superb Neoplatonic language of the Fourth Gospel
of the later Religion in the
oldest Veda and in the Avesta in
the Abhidharma,in Kapila ’s Sankhya,and the Bhagavad Gitâ.We
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cannot attain Adeptship and Nirvana Bliss and
the “Kingdom of Heaven ” unless we link ourselves
indissolubly with our Rex Lux the Lord of
Splendour and of Light our immortal God within us.“Aham eva
param Brahman ”-“ I am verily the Supreme Brahman ”-has ever been the one
living truth in the heart
and mind of the Adepts,and it is this which
helps the Mystic to become one.One must first of all
recognize one ’s own immortal Principle and
then only can one conquer or take the Kingdom of Heaven
by violence.Only this has to be achieved by
the higher -not the middle nor the third -man the last one
being of dust.Nor can the second man the “Son
”-on this plane as his “Father ”is the Son on a still
higher plane -do anything without the
assistance of the first the “Father.”But to succeed one has to
identify oneself with one ’s divine Parent.
The first man is of the earth earthy;the
second [inner our higher ] man is the Lord from
heaven....Behold I show you a mystery.[ I.Cor.,xv.47.50 .]
Thus says Paul mentioning but the dual and
trinitarian man for the better comprehension of the non-
initiated.But this is not all for the Dephic
injunction has to be fulfilled:man must know himself in order to
become a perfect Adept.How few can acquire the
knowledge however not merely in its inner mystical
but even in its literal sense for there are
two meanings in this command of the Oracle.This is the
doctrine of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas pure
and simple.
Such is also the mystical sense of what was
said to Paul to the Corinthians about their being the “temple
of God ”for this meant Esoterically:
Ye are the temple of [the or your ] God and
the Spirit of [a or your ] God dwelleth in you.[ I
Cor .iii.16.Has
the reader ever meditated upon the suggestive words,often pronounced by
Jesus and his Apostles?“Be ye therefore
perfect as your Father...is perfect ” (Matt .v.48),
says the Great Master.The words are “as
perfect as your Father which is in heaven ”being
interpreted as meaning God.Now the utter
absurdity of any man becoming as perfect as the
infinite all-perfect omniscient and
omnipresent Deity is too apparent.If you accept it in such
a sense Jesus is made to utter the greatest
fallacy.What was Esoterically meant is,“Your
Father who is above the material and astral
man the highest Principle (save the Monad)
within man his own personal God or the God of
his own personality of whom he is the
‘prison ’ and the ‘temple.’ “”If thou wilt be
perfect (i.e .an Adept and Initiate)go and sell that
thou hast ”(Matt .xix.21).Every man who
desired to become a neophyte a chela then as
now had to take the vow of poverty.The
“Perfect ” was the name given to the Initiates of every
denomination.Plato calls them by that term.The
Essenes had their “Perfect.”and Paul plainly
states that they the Initiates,can only speak
before other Adepts.“We speak wisdom among
them [only ] that are perfect ”(I.Cor .ii.6).]
(Page 64)This carries precisely the same meaning as the
“ I am verily Brahman ”of the Vedantin.Nor is the
latter assertion more blasphemous than the
Pauline -if there were any blasphemy in either which is
denied.Only the Vedantin who never refers to
his body as being himself or even a part of himself or
aught else but an illusory form for others to
see him in constructs his assertion more openly and
sincerely than was done by Paul.
The Delphic command “Know thyself ” was
perfectly comprehensible to every nation of old.So it is now
save to the Christians,since with the
exception of the Mussulmans,it is part and parcel of every Eastern
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religion including the Kabalistically
instructed Jews.To understand its full meaning however
necessitates,first of all belief in
Reincarnation and all its mysteries;not as laid down in the doctrine of
the French Reincarnationists of the Allan
Kardec school but as they are expounded and taught by
Esoteric Philosophy.Man must in short know who
he was,before he arrives at knowing what he is.And
how many are there among Europeans who are
capable of developing within themselves an absolute
belief in their past and future
reincarnations,in general even as a law let alone mystic knowledge of
one ’s immediately precedent life?Early
education tradition and training of thought everything is
opposing itself during their whole lives to
such a belief.Cultured people have been brought up in that
most pernicious idea that the wide difference
found between the units of one and the same mankind or
even race is the result of chance;that the
gulf between man and man in their respective social positions,
birth intellect physical and mental capacities
-every one of which qualifications has a direct influence on
every human life -that all this is simply due
to blind hazard only the most pious among them finding
equivocal consolation in the idea that it is
“the will of God.” They have never analysed never stopped to
think of the depth of the opprobrium that is
thrown upon their God once the grand and most equitable
law of the manifold re-births of man upon this
earth is foolishly rejected.Men and women anxious to be
regarded as Christians,often truly and
sincerely trying to lead a Christ-like life have never paused to
reflect over the words of their own Bible.
Jesus Taught Reincarnation -(Page 65)“Art thou Elias?” the Jewish priests and Levites
asked the
Baptist.[ John,i.21.] Their
Saviour taught His disciples this grand truth of the Esoteric Philosophy but
verily if His Apostles comprehended it no one
else seems to have realised its true meaning.No;not
even Nicodemus,who to the assertion:“Except a
man be born again [John,iii
“Born ” from above viz.,
from his Monad or divine EGO
the seventh Principle which remains till the
end of the Kalpa the nucleus
of and at the same time the overshadowing
Principle as the Karanatma (Causal Soul)of the personality
in every rebirth.In this sense the sentence
“born anew ” means “descends from above ” the last two
words having no reference to heaven or space
neither of which can be limited or located since one is a
state and the other infinite hence having no
cardinal points.(See New Testament,Revised Version
loc.cit.)] he cannot see the Kingdom of God ”
answers:“How can a man be born when he is old?” and is
forthwith reproved by the remark:“Art thou a
Master in Israel and knowest not these things?-as no one
had a right to call himself a “Master ” and
Teacher without having been initiated into the mysteries (a)of a
spiritual re-birth through water fire and
spirit and (b)of the re-birth from flesh.[ This can have no
reference to Christian Baptism,since there was
none in the days of Nicodemus and he could not
therefore know anything of it even though a
“Master.”] Then again what can
be a clearer expression as
to the doctrine of manifold re-births than the
answer given by Jesus to the Sadducees,“who deny that
there is any resurrection ” i.e.,any
re-birth since the dogma of the resurrection in the flesh is now
regarded as an absurdity even by the
intelligent clergy:
They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain
that world [Nirvana ] [ This
word translated in
the New Testament “world ”to suit the
official interpretation means rather an “age ”(as shown
in the Revised Version )or one of the
periods during the Manvantara a Kalpa or Aeon.
Esoterically the sentence would read:“He who
shall reach through a series of births and
Karmic law the state in which Humanity shall
find itself after the Seventh Round and the
Seventh Race when comes Nirvana Moksha and
when man becomes ‘equal unto the
Angels ’ of Dhyan Chohans,is a ‘son of the
resurrection ’ and ‘can die no more ’:then there will
be no marriage as there will be no difference
of sexes ”-a result of our present materiality and
animalism .]....neither marry ...Neither can they die any more
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which shows that they had already died and
more than once.And again:
Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed
...He calleth the Lord the God of
Abraham and the God of Isaac,and the God of
Jacob for he is not a God of the dead but of
the living.[ L ke,xx.27-38.]
The sentence “now that the dead are raised
” evidently applied to the then actual re-births of the Jacobs
and the Isaacs,and not to their (Page 66)future resurrection;for in such case they
would have been still
dead in the interim and could not be referred
to as “the living.”
But in the most suggestive of Christ ’s
parables and “dark sayings ” is found in the explanation given by
him to his Apostles about the blind man:
Master who did sin this man or his
parents,that he was born blind?Jesus answered Neither
hath this [blind physical ] man sinned nor his
parents;but that the works of [his ] God should be
made manifest in him.[ John ix.2.3.]
Man is the “tabernacle ” the “building ” only
of his God;and of course it is not the temple but its inmate -
the vehicle of “God ” [The conscious Ego of Fifth Principle Manas,the vehicle of the
divine Monad or
“God ”.]
that had sinned in a previous incarnation and had thus brought the Karma
of cecity upon the new
building.Thus Jesus spoke truly;but to this
day his followers have refused to understand the words of
wisdom spoken.The Saviour is shown by his
followers as though he were paving by his words and
explanation the way to a preconceived
programme that had to lead to an intended miracle.Verily the
Grand Martyr has remained thenceforward and
for eighteen centuries,the Victim crucified daily far more
cruelly by his clerical disciples and lay
followers than he ever could have been by his allegorical enemies.
For such is the true sense of the words “that
the works of God should be made manifest in him ” in the
light of theological interpretation and a very
undignified one it is,if the Esoteric explanation is rejected.
Doubtless the above will be regarded as fresh
blasphemy.Nevertheless there are a number of Christians
whom we know -whose hearts go out as strongly
to their ideal of Jesus,as their souls are repelled from
the theological picture of the official Saviour
-who will reflect over our explanation and find in it no
offence but perchance a relief.
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SECTION VI
The Dangers of Practical Magic
(Page 67)MAGIC is a dual power:nothing is easier than
to turn it into Sorcery;an evil tho ght suffices for
it.Therefore
while theoretical Occultism is harmless,and may do good practical Magic,or the
fruits of
the Tree of Life and Knowledge [ Some Symbologists relying on the
correspondence of numbers and the
symbols of certain things and personages,refer
these “secrets ” to the mystery of generation.But it is
more than this.The glyph of the “Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil ” has no doubt a phallic and sexual
element in it as has the “Woman and the
Serpent ” ;but it has also a psychical and spiritual significance.
Symbols are meant to yield more than one
meaning.] or otherwise the
“Science of Good and Evil ” is
fraught with dangers and perils.For the study
of theoretical Occultism there are no doubt a number of
works that may be read with profit besides
such books as the Finer Forces of Nat re,etc.the Zohar,
Sepher Jetzirah,The Book of Enoch,Franck ’s Kabalah,and many Hermetic treatises.These
are scarce
in European languages,but works in Latin by
the mediaeval Philosophers,generally known as
Alchemists and Rosicrucians,are plentiful.But
even the perusal of these may prove dangerous for the
unguided student.If approached without the
right key to them and if the student is unfit owing to mental
incapacity for Magic,and is thus unable to
discern the Right from the Left Path let him take our advice
and leave this study alone;he will only bring
on himself and on his family unexpected woes and sorrows,
never suspecting whence they come nor what are
the powers awakened by his mind being bent on
them.Works for advanced students are many but
these can be placed at the disposal of only sworn or
“pledged ” chelas (disciples),those who have
pronounced the ever-binding oath and who are therefore
helped and protected.For all other
purposes,well-intentioned as such works may (Page 68)be they can
only mislead the unwary and guide them
imperceptibly to Black Magic or Sorcery -if to nothing worse.
The mystic characters,alphabets and numerals
found in the divisions and sub-divisions of the Great
Kabalah are
perhaps,the most dangerous portions in it and especially the numerals.We say
dangerous,because they are the most prompt to
produce effects and results and this with or without the
experimenter ’s will even without his
knowledge.Some students are apt to doubt this statement simply
because after manipulating these numerals they
have failed to notice any dire physical manifestation or
result.Such results would be found the least
dangerous:it is the moral causes produced and the various
events developed and brought to an unforeseen
crisis,that would testify to the truth of what is now stated
had the lay students only the power of
discernment.
The point of departure of that special branch
of the Occult teaching known as the “Science of
Correspondences,”numerical or literal or
alphabetical has for its epigraph with the Jewish and
Christian Kabalists,the two mis-interpreted
verses which say that God ordered all things in
number measure and weight;[ Wisdom,xi.21.Douay version ]
and:
He created her in the Holy Ghost and saw her
and numbered her and measured her.[
Ecclesiasticus,i.9.Douay version.]
But the Eastern Occultists have another
epigraph:“Absol te Unity,x,within number and plurality.” Both
the Western and the Eastern students of the
Hidden Wisdom hold to this axiomatic truth.Only the latter
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are perhaps more sincere in their
confessions.Instead of putting a mask on their Science they show her
face openly even if they do veil carefully her
heart and soul before the inappreciative public and the
profane who are ever ready to abuse the most
sacred truths for their own selfish ends.But Unity is the
real basis of the Occult Sciences -physical
and metaphysical.This is shown even by Eliphas Levi the
learned Western Kabalist inclined as he is to
be rather jesuitical.He says:
Absolute Unity is the supreme and final reason
of things.Therefore that reason can be neither
one person nor three persons;it is Reason and
preeminently Reason (raison par excellence ).
[ Dogme et Rit el de la Ha te Magie,i,361 .]
Names are Symbols -(Page 69)The meaning of this Unity in Plurality in “God ” or Nature
can be solved
only by the means of transcendental methods,by
numerals,as by the correspondences between soul
and the Soul.Names,in the Kabalah,as in
the Bible such as Jehovah Adam Kadmon Eve Cain Abel
Enoch are all of them more intimately
connected by geometrical and astronomical relations,with
Physiology (or Phallicism)than with Theology
or Religion.Little as people are as yet prepared to admit it
this will be shown to be a fact.If all those
names are symbols for things hidden as well as for those
manifested in the Bible as in the Vedas,their
respective mysteries differ greatly.Plato ’s motto “God
geometrises ” was accepted by both Aryans and
Jews;but while the former applied their Science of
Correspondences to veil the most spiritual and
sublime truths of Nature the latter used their acumen to
conceal only one -to them the most divine -of
the mysteries of Evolution namely that of birth and
generation and then they deified the organs of
the latter.
Apart from this,every cosmogony from the
earliest to the latest is based upon interlinked with and most
closely related to numerals and geometric
figures.Questioned by an Initiate these figures and numbers
will yield numerical values based on the
integral values of the Circle -“the secret habitat of the ever-
invisible Deity ” as the Alchemists have it
-as they will yield every other Occult particular connected with
such mysteries,whether anthropographical
anthroplogical cosmic,or psychical.“In reuniting Ideas to
Numbers,we can operate upon Ideas in the same
way as upon Numbers,and arrive at the Mathematics
of Truth ”writes an Occultist who shows his
great wisdom in desiring to remain unknown.
Any Kabalist well acquainted with the
Pythagorean system of numerals and geometry can
demonstrate that the metaphysical views of
Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical
principles.“True mathematics,”says the Magicon
“is something with which all higher sciences
are connected;common mathematics is but a
deceitful phantasmagoria whose much praised
infallibility only arises from this -that
materials,conditions and references are made to
foundation.”
The cosmological theory of numerals which
Pythagoras learned in India and from the
Egyptian Hierophants is alone able to
reconcile the two units,matter and spirit and cause
each to demonstrate the other
mathematically.The sacred numbers of the universe in their
esoteric combination can alone solve the great
problem and explain the theory of radiation
and the cycle of the emanations.The lower
orders,before they develop into higher ones,must
emanate from the (Page 70)higher spiritual ones,and when arrived at the
turning-point be
reabsorbed into the infinite.[Isis Unveiled,i 6,7.]
It is upon these true Mathematics that the
knowledge of the Kosmos and of all mysteries rests,and to
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one acquainted with them it is the easiest
thing possible to prove that both Vaidic and Biblical structures
are based upon “God-in-Nature ” and “Nature-in-God
” as the radical law.Therefore this law -as
everything else immutable and fixed in
eternity -could find a correct expression only in those purest
transcendental Mathematics referred to by
Plato especially in Geometry as transcendentally applied.
Revealed to men -we fear not and will not retract the expression -in this
geometrical and symbolical
garb Truth has grown and developed into
additional symbology invented by man for the wants and
better comprehension of the masses of mankind
that came too late in their cyclic development and
evolution to have shared in the primitive
knowledge and would never have grasped it otherwise.If later
on the clergy -crafty and ambitious of power
in every age -anthropomorphised and degraded abstract
ideals,as well as the real and divine Beings
who do exist in Nature and are the Guardians and
Protectors of our manvantaric world and period
the fault and guilt rests with those would-be leaders,not
with the masses.
But the day has come when the gross
conceptions of our forefathers during the Middle Ages can no
longer satisfy the thoughtful religionist.The
mediaeval Alchemist and Mystic are now transformed into the
sceptical Chemist and Physicist;and most of
them are found to have turned away from truth on account
of the purely anthropomorphic ideas,the gross
Materialism of the forms in which it is presented to them.
Therefore future generations have either to be
gradually initiated into the truths underlying Exoteric
Religions,including their own or to be left to
break the feet of clay of the last of the gilded idols.No
educated man or woman would turn away from any
of the now called “superstitions,” which they believe
to be based on nursery tales and ignorance if
they could only see the basis of fact that underlies every
“superstition.” But let them once learn for a
certainty that there is hardly a claim in the Occult Sciences
that is not founded on philosophical and
scientific facts in Nature and they will pursue the study of those
Sciences with the same if not with greater
ardour than that they have expended in shunning them.This
cannot be achieved at once for to benefit
mankind such truths have to be revealed gradually and with
great caution the public mind not being prepared
for them.
The Three Mothers -(Page 71)However much the Agnostics of our age may find themselves in
the
mental attitude demanded by Modern Science
people are always apt to cling to their old hobbies so long
as the remembrance of them lasts.They are like
the Emperor Julian -called the Apostate because he
loved truth too well to accept aught else -who
though in his last Theophany he beheld his beloved Gods
as pale worn-out and hardly discernible
shadows,nevertheless clung to them.Let then the world cling
to its Gods,to whatever plane or realm they
may belong.The true Occultist would be guilty of high
treason to mankind were he to break forever
the old deities before he could replace them with the whole
and unadulterated truth -and this he cannot do
as yet.Nevertheless,the reader may be allowed to learn
at least the alphabet of that truth.He may be
shown at any rate what the Gods and Goddesses of the
Pagans,denounced as demons by the Church are
not if he cannot learn the whole and final truth as to
what they are.Let him assure himself that the
Hermetic “Tres Matres,” and the “Three Mothers ” of the
Sepher Jetzirah are one and the same thing;that they are no
Demon-Goddesses,but Light Heat and
Electricity and then perchance the learned
classes will spurn them no longer.After this,the Rosicrucian
Illuminati may find followers even in the
Royal Academies,which will be more prepared perhaps,than
they are now to admit the grand truths of
archaic Natural Philosophy especially when their learned
members shall have assured themselves that in
the dialect of Hermes,the “Three Mothers ” stand as
symbols for the whole of the forces or
agencies which have a place assigned to them in the modern
system of the “correlation of forces.” [ “Synesius mentions books of stone
which he found in the temple of
Memphis,on one of which was engraved the
following sentence:‘One nat re delights in another one
nature overcomes another one nature overrules
another and the whole of them are one ’.” “The inherent
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restlessness of matter is embodied in the
saying of Hermes:‘Action is he life of Phta ’:and Orpheus calls
nature ÷ïëõìç÷áíïò ìáôçñ ‘the mother that
makes many things,’ or the ingenious,the contiving the
inventive mother.”-Isis Unveiled.i.257.]Even the polytheism of the
“superstitious ”Brâhman and idolater
shows its raison d ’être,since the
three Shaktis of the three great Gods,Brahma Vishnu and Shiva are
identical with the “Three Mothers ”of the
monotheistic Jew.
The whole of the ancient religious and
mystical literature is symbolical.The Books of Hermes,the Zohar,
the Ya-Yakav,the Egyptian Book of
the Dead,(Page 72)the Vedas,the
Upanishads,and the Bible are as
full of symbolism as are the Nabathean
revelations of the Chaldaic Qu-tâmy;it is a loss of time to ask
which is the earliest;all are simply different
versions of the one primeval Record of prehistoric knowledge
and revelation.
The first four chapters of Genesis contain
the synopsis of all the rest of the Pentate ch,being only the
various versions of the same thing in
different allegorical and symbolical applications.Having discovered
that the Pyramid of Cheops with all its
measurements is to be found contained in its minutest details in
the structure of Solomon ’s Temple;and having
ascertained that the biblical names Shem Ham and
Japhet are determinative
of pyramid measures,in connection with the
600-year period of Noah and the 500-year period
of Shem Ham and Japhet:...the term “Sons of
Elohim ”and “Daughters ”of H-Adam [are ] for
one thing astronomical terms,[ So rce of Measures.p.x.]
the author of the very curious work already
mentioned -a book very little known in Europe we regret to
say -seems to see nothing in his discovery
beyond the presence of Mathematics and Metrology in the
Bible .He
also arrives at most unexpected and extraordinary conclusions,such as are very
little
warranted by the facts discovered.His impression
seems to be that because the Jewish biblical names
are all astronomical therefore the Scriptures
of all the other nations can be “only this and nothing more.”
But this is a great mistake of the erudite and
wonderfully acute author of The So rce of Measures,if he
really thinks so.The “Key to the
Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery ” unlocks but a certain portion of the hieratic
writings of these two nations,and leaves those
of other peoples untouched.His idea is that the Kabalah
“is only that sublime Science upon which
Masonry is based ” ,in fact he regards Masonry as the
substance of the Kabalah,and the latter
as the “rational basis of the Hebrew text of Holy Writ.” About this
we will not argue with the author.But why
should all those who may have found in the Kabalah
something beyond “the sublime Science ”upon
which Masonry is alleged to have been built be held up to
public contempt?
In its exclusiveness and one-sidedness such a
conclusion is pregnant with future misconceptions and is
absolutely wrong.In its uncharitable criticism
it throws a slur upon the “Divine Science ”itself.
The Bible and Word -Juggling -(Page 73)The Kabalah is indeed “of the essence
of Masonry ”but it is
dependent on Metrology only in one of its
aspects the less Esoteric,as even Plato made no secret that
the Deity was ever geometrising.For the
uninitiated however learned and endowed with genius they
may be the Kabalah which treats only of
“the garment of God ”or the veil and cloak of truth
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is built from the ground upward with a
practical application to present uses.[
Masonic Review,
July 1886 ]
Or in other words represents an exact Science
only on the terrestrial plane.To the initiated the Kabalistic
Lord descends from the primeval Race generated
spiritually from the “Mind-born Seven.”Having
reached the Earth the Divine Mathematics -a
synonym for Magic in his day as we are told by Josephus -
veiled her face.Hence the most important
secret yet yielded by her in our modern day is the identity of
the old Roman measures and the present British
measures of the Hebrew-Egyptian cubit and the
Masonic inch.[See So rce of Measures pp.47 -50 et pass.]
The discovery is most wonderful and has led to
further and minor unveilings of various riddles in
reference to Symbology and biblical names.It
is thoroughly understood and proven as shown by
Nachanides,that in the days of Moses the
initial sentence in Genesis was made to read B ’rash ithbara
Elohim,or
“In the head-source [ or Mûlaprakriti -the Rootless Root ] developed [or
evolved ] the Gods
[Elohim ] the heavens and the earth;”whereas
it is now owing to the Massora and theological cunning
transformed into B ’rashith bara Elohim,or
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ”-
which word juggling alone has led to
materialistic anthropomorphism and dualism.] How many more
similar instances may not be found in the Bible
the last and latest of the Occult works of antiquity?There
is no longer any doubt in the mind of the
Occultist that notwithstanding its form and outward meaning
the Bible -as explained by the Zohar
or Midrash,the Yetsirah (Book of Creation)and the Commentary
on the Ten Sephiroth (by Azariel Ben Manachem of the X11th century)-is part and
parcel of the Secret
Doctrine of the Aryans,which explains in the
same manner the Vedas and all other allegorical books.The
Zohar in
teaching that the Impersonal One Cause manifests in the Universe through Its
Emanations,the
Sephiroth -that Universe being in its (Page 74)totality simply the veil woven from the Deity
’s own
substance -is undeniably the copy and faithful
echo of the earliest Vedas .Taken by itself without the
additional help of the Vaidic and of
Brahmanical literature in general the Bible will never yield the
universal secrets of Occult Nature.The cubits
inches,and measures of this physical plane will never
solve the problems of the world on the
spiritual plane -for Spirit can neither be weighed nor measured.
The working out of these problems is reserved
for the “mystics and the dreamers ”who alone are capable
of accomplishing it.
Moses was an initiated priest versed in all
the mysteries and the Occult knowledge of the Egyptian
temples -hence thoroughly acquainted with
primitive Wisdom.It is in the latter that the symbolical and
astronomical meaning of that “Mystery of
Mysteries,”the Great Pyramid has to be sought.And having
been so familiar with the geometrical secrets
that lay concealed for long aeons in her strong bosom -the
measurements and proportions of the Kosmos,our
little Earth included -what wonder that he should
have made use of his knowledge?The Esoterism
of Egypt was that of the whole world at one time.
During the long ages of the Third Race it had
been the heirloom in common of the whole of mankind
received from their Instructors,the “Sons of
Light ”the primeval Seven.There was a time also when the
Wisdom-Religion was not symbolical for it
became Esoteric only gradually the change being
necessitated by misuse and by the Sorcery of
the Atlanteans.For it was the “misuse ”only and not the
use of the divine gift that led the men of the
Fourth Race to Black Magic and Sorcery and finally to
become “forgetful of Wisdom ” ;while those of
the Fifth Race the inheritors of the Rishis of the Treta
Yuga used their powers to atrophise such gifts
in mankind in general and then as the “Elect Root ”
dispersed.Those who escaped the “Great Flood
”preserved only its memory and a belief founded on the
knowledge of their direct fathers of one
remove that such a Science existed and was now jealously
guarded by the “Elect Root ”exalted by
Enoch.But there must again come a time when man shall once
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more become what he was during the second Yuga
(age),when his probationary cycle shall be over and
he shall gradually become what he was
-semi-corporeal and pure.Does not Plato the Initiate tell us in
the Phaedrus all that man once was and
that which he may yet again become:
Before man ’s spirit sank into sensuality and
became embodied through the loss of his wings,
he lived among the Gods in the airy spiritual
world where everything is true and pure.[
See
Cary's translation pp.322 323.]
Moses and the Jews -(Page 75 )Elsewhere he speaks of the time when men did not perpetuate
themselves,but lived as pure spirits.
Let those men of Science who feel inclined to
laugh at this,themselves unravel the mystery of the origin
of the first man.
Unwilling that his chosen people -chosen by
him -should remain as grossly idolatrous as the profane
masses that surrounded them Moses utilised his
knowledge of cosmogonical mysteries of the Pyramid
to build upon it the Genesiacal Cosmogony in
symbols and glyphs.This was more accessible to the
minds of the hoi polloi than the
abstruse truths taught to the educated in the sanctuaries.He invented
nothing but the outward garb added not one
iota;but in this he merely followed the example of older
nations and Initiates.If he clothed the grand
truths revealed to him by his Hierophant under the most
ingenious imagery he did it to meet the
requirements of the Israelites;that stiff-necked race would accept
no God unless He were as anthropomorphic as
those of the Olympus;and he himself failed to foresee
the times when highly educated statesmen would
be defending the husks of the fruit of wisdom that grew
and developed in him on Mount Sinai when
communing with his own personal God -his divine Self.
Moses understood the great danger of
delivering such truths to the selfish for he understood the fable of
Prometheus and remembered the past.Hence he
veiled them from the profanation of public gaze and
gave them out allegorically.And this is why
his biographer says of him that when he descended from
Sinai
Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone
...And he put a veil upon his face.[ Exod
s.
xxxiv.29 33.]
And so he “put a veil ”upon the face of his Pentate
ch;and to such an extent that using orthodox
chronology only 3376 years after the event
people begin to acquire a conviction that it is “ a veil indeed.”
It is not the face of God or even of a Johovah
shining through;not even the face of Moses,but verily the
faces of the later Rabbis.
No wonder if Clemens wrote in the Stromateis
that:
Similar then to the Hebrew enigmas in respect
to concealment are those of the Egyptians
also.[
Op,cit.,V,vii.]
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SECTION VII
Old Wine in New Bottles
(Page 76)IT is more than likely that the Protestants in
the days of the Reformation knew nothing of the
true origin of Christianity or to be more
explicit and correct of Latin Ecclesiasticism.Nor is it probable
that the Greek Church knew much of it the
separation between the two having occurred at a time when
in the struggle for political power the Latin
Church was securing at any cost the alliance of the highly
educated the ambitious and influential
Pagans,while these were willing to assume the outward
appearance of the new worship provided they
were themselves kept in power.There is no need to
remind the reader here of the details of that
struggle well-known to every educated man.It is certain that
the highly cultivated Gnostics and their
leaders -such men as Saturnilus,an uncompromising ascetic,as
Marcion Valentinus,Basilides,Menander and
Cerinthus -were not stigmatised by the (now)Latin
Church because they were heretics,nor because
their tenets and practices were indeed “ob t rpit dinem
portentosam nimi m et horribilem,”“monstrous,revolting abominations,” as Baronius says of
those of
Carpocrates ;but simply because they knew too
much of fact and truth.Kenneth R.H.Mackenzie
correctly remarks;
They were stigmatised by the later Roman
Church because they came into conflict with the
purer Church of Christianity -the possession
of which was usurped by the Bishops of Rome
but which original continues in its docility
towards the founder in the Primitive Orthodox Greek
Church.[
The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia nder “Gnosticism.”]
Unwilling to accept the responsibility of
gratuitous assumptions,the writer deems it best to prove this
inference by more than one personal and
defiant admission of an ardent Roman Catholic writer evidently
entrusted with the delicate task by the
Vatican.
Copies That Ante-Dated Originals -(Page 77)The Marquis de Mirville makes desperate
efforts to
explain to the Catholic interest certain
remarkable discoveries in Archaeology and Palaeography though
the Church is cleverly made to remain outside
of the quarrel and defence.This is undeniably shown by
his ponderous volumes addressed to the Academy
of France between 1803 and 1865.Seizing the
pretext of drawing the attention of the
materialistic “Immortals ”to the “epidemic of Spiritualism ”the
invasion of Europe and America by a numberless
host of Satanic forces,he directs his efforts towards
proving the same by giving the full
Genealogies and the Theogony of the Christian and Pagan deities,
and by drawing parallels between the two.All
such wonderful likenesses and identities are only “seeming
and superficial ”he assures the
reader.Christian symbols,and even characters,Christ the Virgin
Angels and Saints,tells them were all
personated centuries beforehand by the fiends of hell in order to
discredit eternal truth by their ungodly
copies.By their knowledge of futurity the devils anticipated events,
having discovered the secrets of the
Angels.”Heathen Deities,all the Sun-Gods,named Sotors -
Saviours -born of immaculate mothers and dying
a violent death were only Ferouers [In
the Fero ers
and Devs of Jacobi (Letters F.and
D.)the word “ferouer ”is explained in the following manner:The
Ferouer is a part of the creature (whether man
or animal)of which it is the type and which it survives.It is
the Nous of the Greeks,therefore divine and
immortal and thus can hardly be the Devil or the satanic
copy De Mirville would represent it (See Memoires
de l ’Academie des Inscriptions Vol.XXXV11 P.623
and chap.xxxix.p.749).Foucher contradicts him
entirely.The Ferouer was never the “principle of
sensations,”but always referred to the most
divine and pure portion of Man ’s Ego -the spiritual principle.
Anquetil says the Ferouer is the purest
portion of man ’s soul.The Persian Dev is the antithesis of the
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Ferouer for the Dev has been transformed by
Zoroaster into the Genius of Evil (whence the Christian
Devil),but even the Dev is only finite:for
having become possessed of the soul of man by s rpation it
will have to leave it at the great day of
Retribution.The Dev obsesses the soul of the defunct for three
days during which the soul wanders about the
spot at which it was forcibly separated from its body the
Ferouer ascends to the region of eternal
Light.It was an unfortunate idea that made the noble Marquis
de Mirville imagine the Ferouer to be a
“satanic copy ” of a divine original.By calling all the Gods of the
Pagans -Apollo Osiris,Brahma Ormazd Bel
etc.the “Ferouers of Christ and of the chief Angels,”he
merely exhibits the God and the Angels he
would honour as inferior to the Pagan Gods,as man is inferior
to his Soul and Spirit:since the Ferouer is
the immortal part of the mortal being of which it is the type and
which it survives.Perchance the poor author is
unconsciously prophetic:and Apollo Brahma Ormazd
Osiris,etc.are destined to survive and replace
-as eternal cosmic verities -the evanescent fictions
about the God Christ and Angels of the Latin
Church!]-as they were called by
the Zoroastrians -the
demon-ante-dated copies (copies anticipées )of
the Messiah to come
The danger of recognition of such facsimiles
had indeed lately become dangerously great.It had lingered
threateningly in the air hanging like a sword
of Damocles over the Church since the days of Voltaire
Dupuis and other writers on similar lines.The
discoveries (Page 78)of the
Egyptologists,the finding of
Assyrian and Babylonian pre-Mosaic relics
bearing the legend of Moses [ See
George Smith's Babylon
and other works ]and especially the many rationalistic works published in England
such as S pernat ral
Religion made recognition unavoidable.Hence the appearance of Protestant and Roman
Catholic
writers deputed to explain the inexplicable;to
reconcile the face of Divine Revelation with the mystery
that the divine personages,rites,dogmas and
symbols of Christianity were so often identical with those
of the several great heathen religions.The
former -the Protestant defenders -tried to explain it on the
ground of “prophetic,precursory ideas ” ;the
Latinists,such as De Mirville by inventing a double set of
Angels and Gods,the one divine and true the
other -the earlier -“copies ante-dating the originals ”and
due to a clever plagiarism by the Evil One.The
Protestant stratagem is an old one that of the Roman
Catholics is so old that it has been forgotten
and is as good as new.Dr.Lundy ’s Mon mental Christianity
and A Miracle in Stone belong to the
first attempts.De.Mirville ’s Pne matologie to the second.In India
and China every such effort on the part of the
Scotch and other missionaries ends in laughter and does
no harm;the plan devised by the Jesuits is
more serious.De Mirville ’s volumes are thus very important
as they proceed from a source which has
undeniably the greatest learning of the age at its service and
this coupled with all the craft and casuistry
that the sons of Loyola can furnish.The Marquis de Mirville
was evidently helped by the acutest minds in
the service of Rome.
He begins by not only admitting the justice of
every imputation and charge made against the Latin
Church as to the originality of her dogmas,but
by taking a seeming delight in anticipating such charges;
for he points to every dogma of Christianity
as having existed in Pagan rituals in Antiquity.The whole
Pantheon of Heathen Deities is passed in
review by him and each is shown to have had some point of
resemblance with the Trinitarian personages
and Mary.There is hardly a mystery a dogma or a rite in
the Latin Church that is not shown by the
author as having been “parodied by the Curvati ”-the “Curved ”
the Devils.All this being admitted and
explained the Symbologists ought to be silenced.And so they
would be if there were no materialistic
critics to reject such omnipotency of the Devil in this world.For if
Rome admits the likenesses,she also claims the
right of judgment between the true and the false
Avatâra the real and the unreal God between
the original and the copy -though the copy precedes the
original by millenniums.
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Which Were the Thieves?-(Page 79)Our author proceeds to argue that whenever the
missionaries try
to convert an idolater they are invariably
answered:
We had our Crucified before yours.What do you
come to show us?[This is as
fanciful as it is
arbitrary.Where is the Hindu or Buddhist who
would speak of his “Crucified ’?] Again
what
should we gain by denying the mysterious side
of this copy under the plea that according to
Weber all the present P ranas are
remade from older ones,since here we have in the same
order of personages a positive precedence
which no one would ever think of contesting.[Op.
cit.,iv.237
]
And the author instances Buddha Krishna Apollo
etc.Having admitted all this he escapes the difficulty
in this wise:
The Church Fathers,however who recognised
their own property under all such sheep ’s
clothing ...knowing by means of the Gospel
...all the ruses of the pretended spirits of light;
the Fathers,we say meditating upon the
decisive words,“all that ever came before me are
robbers ”(John,x.8),did not hesitate in
recognising the Occult agency at work the general
and superhuman direction given beforehand to
falsehood the universal attribute and
environment of all these false Gods of the
nations;“omnes dii genti m daemonia (elilim ).”
(Psalm xcv.)[ Loc cit.,250.]
With such a policy everything is made
easy.There is not one glaring resemblance not one fully proven
identity that could not thus be made away
with.The above-quoted cruel selfish self-glorifying words,
placed by John in the mouth of Him who was
meekness and charity personified could never have been
pronounced by Jesus.The Occultists reject the
imputation indignantly and are prepared to defend the
man as against the God by showing whence come
the words,plagiarised by the author of the Fourth
Gospel.They are taken bodily from the
“Prophecies ”in the Book of Enoch .The evidence on this head of
the learned biblical scholar Archbishop
Laurence and of the author of the Evol tion of Christianity who
edited the translation may be brought forward
to prove the fact.On the last page of the Introduction to
the Book of Enoch is found the
following passage:
The parable of the sheep rescued by the good
Shepherd from hireling guardians and ferocious
wolves,is obviously borrowed by the fourth
Evangelist from (Page
80)Enoch,Ixxxix,in which
the author depicts the shepherds as killing
and destroying the sheep before the advent of the
Lord and this discloses the true meaning of
that hitherto mysterious passage in the Johannine
parable -“All that ever came before me are
thieves and robbers ”-language in which we now
detect an obvious reference to the allegorical
shepherds of Enoch.
“Obvious ”truly and something else besides.For
if Jesus pronounced the words in the sense attributed
to him then he must have read the Book of
Enoch -a purely Kabalistic,Occult work,and he therefore
recognised the worth and value of a treatise
now declared apocryphal by his Churches.Moreover he
could not have been ignorant that these words
belonged to the oldest ritual of Inititation.
[“Q ” :Who knocks at the door?
A.:The good cowherd.
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Q.:Who preceded thee?
A.:The three robbers.
Q.:Who follows thee?
A.:The three murderers,” etc.etc.”
Now this is the conversation that took place
between the priest-initiators and the candidates
for initiation during the mysteries enacted in
the oldest sanctuaries of the Himalayan
fastnesses.The ceremony is still performed to
this day in one of the most ancient temples in a
secluded spot of Nepaul.It originated with the
Mysteries of the first Krishna passed to the
First Tirthankara and ended with Buddha and is
called the Kurukshetra rite being enacted as
a memorial of the great battle and death of
the divine Adept.It is not Masonry but an initiation
into the Occult teachings of that
Hero-Occultism pure and simple.]
And if he had not read it and the sentence
belongs to John or whoever wrote the Fourth Gospel then
what reliance can be placed on the
authenticity of other sayings and parables attributed to the Christian
Saviour?
Thus,De Mirville ’s illustration is an
unfortunate one.Every other proof brought by the Church to show the
infernal character of the
ante-and-anti-Christian copyists may be easily disposed of.This is perhaps
unfortunate but it is a fact nevertheless -Magna
est veritas et prevalebit.
The above is the answer to the Occultists to
the two parties who charge them incessantly the one with
“Superstition.”and the other with “Sorcery.”To
those of our Brothers who are Christians,and twit us with
the secresy imposed upon the Eastern
Chelas,adding invariably that their own “Book of God ’ is “an open
volume ”for all “to read understand and be
saved .” we would reply by asking them to study what we
have just said in this Section and then to
refute it -if they can.There are very few in our days who are
still prepared to assure their readers that
the Bible had
God for its author salvation for its end and
truth without any mixture of error for its matter.
Character of the Bible -(Page 81)Could Locke be asked the question now he would
perhaps be
unwilling to repeat again that the Bible is
all pure all sincere nothing too much nothing
wanting.
The Bible,if it is not to be shown to
be the very reverse of all this,sadly needs an interpreter acquainted
with the doctrines of the East as they are to
be found in its secret volumes;nor is it safe now after
Archbishop Laurence's translation of the Book
of Enoch to cite Cowper and assure us that the Bible
...gives
a light to every age
It gives,but borrows none.
for it does borrow and that very
considerably;especially in the opinion of those who ignorant of its
symbolical meaning and of the university of
the truths underlying and concealed in it are able to judge
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only from its dead letter appearance.It is a
grand volume a master-piece composed of clever ingenious
fables containing great verities;but it
reveals the latter only to those who like the Initiates,have a key to
its inner meaning;a tale sublime in its
morality and didactics truly -still a tale and an allegory;a repertory
of invented personages in its older Jewish
portions,and of dark sayings and parables in its later
additions,and thus quite misleading to anyone
ignorant of its Esotericism.Moreover it is Astrolatry and
Sabaean worship pure and simple that is to be
found in the Pentate ch when it is read exoterically and
Archaic Science and Astronomy to a most
wonderful degree when interpreted -Esoterically.
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SECTION VIII
The Book of Enoch The Origin and the
Foundation of Christianity
(Page 82)WHILE making a good deal of the Mercavah the
Jews or rather their synagogues,rejected the
Book of Enoch,either because it was not included from the first in the
Hebrew Canon or else as
Tertullian thought it was disavowed
by the Jews like all other Scripture which
speaks of Christ [Book of
Enoch,Archbishop
Laurence ’s translation.Introduction p.v.]
But neither of these reasons was the real
one.The Synedrion would have nothing to do with it simply
because it was more of a magic than a purely
kabalistic work.The present day Theologians of both Latin
and Protestant Churches class it among
apocryphal productions.Nevertheless the New Testament
especially in the Acts and Epistles,teems
with ideas and doctrines,now accepted and established as
dogmas by the infallible Roman and other
Churches,and even with the whole sentences taken bodily
from Enoch or the “pseudo-Enoch ” who wrote
under that name in Aramaic or Syro-Chaldaic,as
asserted by Bishop Laurence the translator of
the Ethiopian text.
The plagiarisms are so glaring that the author
of The Evol tion of Christianity who edited
Bishop Laurence ’s translation was compelled
to make some suggestive remarks in his
Introduction.On internal evidence [ The Book of Enoch was unknown
to Europe for a
thousand years when Bruce found in Abyssinia
some copies of it in Ethiopic;it was translated
by Archbishop Laurence in 1821 from the text
in the Bodleian Library Oxford .] this
book is
found to have been written before the
Christian period (whether two or twenty centuries does
not matter).As correctly argued by the Editor
it is
either the inspired forecast of a great Hebrew
prophet predicting with miraculous accuracy the
future teaching of Jesus of Nazareth or the
Semitic romance from which the latter borrowed
His conceptions of the triumphant return of
the Son of man to occupy a judicial throne in the
midst of rejoicing saints and trembling
sinners,expectant of everlasting happiness or eternal
fire;and whether these celestial visions be
accepted as human or Divine they have exercised
so vast an influence on the destinies of
mankind for nearly two thousand years that candid and
impartial seekers after religious truth can no
longer delay enquiry into the relationship of the
Book of Enoch with the revelation or the evolution of Christianity.[Op.cit.,p.xx.]
The Book of Enoch and Christianity -
(Page 83)The Book of Enoch
a lso
records the supernatural control of the elements,through the action of
individual angels
presiding over the winds,the sea hail frost
dew the lightening ’s flash and reverberating
thunder.The names of the principal fallen
angels are also given among whom we recognise
some of the invisible powers named in the
incantations [magical ] inscribed on the terracotta
cups of Hebrew-Chaldee conjurations.[ Loc.cit.]
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We also find on these cups the word
“Halleluiah ”showing that
a word with which ancient Syro-Chaldeans
conjured has become through the vicissitudes of
language the Shibboleth of modern Revivalists.[Op.cit.,p.xiv.note.]
The Editor proceeds after this to give
fifty-seven verses from various parts of the Gospels and Acts,with
parallel passages from the Book of Enoch and
says:
The attention of theologians has been
concentrated on the passage in the Epistle of Jude
because the author specifically names the
prophet;but the cumulative coincidence of
language and ideas in Enoch and the authors of
the New Testament Scripture as disclosed in
the parallel passages which we have collated
clearly indicates that the work of the Semitic
Milton was the inexhaustible source from which
Evangelists and Apostles,or the men who
wrote in their names,borrowed their
conceptions of the resurrection judgement immortality
perdition and of the universal reign of
righteousness,under the eternal dominion of the Son of
man.This evangelical plagiarism culminates in
the Revelation of John which adapts the
visions of Enoch to Christianity with
modifications in which we miss the sublime simplicity of
the great master of apocalyptic prediction who
prophesied in the name of the antediluvian
patriarch.[Op.cit.,p.xxxv.]
In fairness to truth the hypothesis ought at
least to have been suggested that the Book of Enoch in its
present form is simply a transcript -with
numerous pre-Christian and post-Christian additions and
interpolations -from far older texts.Modern
research went so far as to point out that Enoch is made in
Chapter Ixxi to divide the day and night into
eighteen parts and to represent the longest day in the year
as consisting of twelve out of these eighteen
parts,while a day of sixteen (Page 84)hours in length could
not have occurred in Palestine.The translator
Archbishop Laurence remarks thus:
The region in which the author lived must have
been situated not lower than forty-one degrees
north latitude where the longest day is
fifteen hours and a half nor higher perhaps than forty-
nine degrees,where the longest day is precisely
sixteen hours.This will bring the country
where he wrote as high up at least as the
northern districts of the Caspian and Euxine Seas ..
.the author of the Book of Enoch was
perhaps a member of one of the tribes which
Shalmaneser carried away and placed “in Halah
and in Habor by the river Goshen and in the
cities of the Medes.”[Op.cit.,p.xiii.]
Further on it is confessed that:
It cannot be said that internal evidence
attests the superiority of the Old Testament to the
Book of Enoch ...The Book of Enoch teaches the pre-existence of the
Son of man the Elect
One the Messiah who “from the beginning
existed in secret [The Seventh
Principle the First
Emanation.] and whose name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of
Spirits before the
sun and the signs were created.”The author
also refers to the “other Power who was upon
Earth over the water on that day ” -an
apparent reference to the language of Genesis i.2.[ Op
cit.,p.xxxvii
and xI.] [We maintain that it
applies as well to the Hindu Nârâyana -the “mover
on the waters.” ] We have thus the Lord of
Spirits,the Elect One and a third Power seemingly
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foreshadowing the Trinity [as much as the
Trimûrti ] of futurity;but although Enoch ’s ideal
Messiah doubtless exercised an important
influence on primitive conceptions of the Divinity of
the Son of man we fail to identify his obscure
reference to another “Power ” with the
Trinitarianism of the Alexandrine school;more
especially as “angels of power ” abound in the
visions of Enoch.[Op cit.,pp x1 and 1i .]
An Occultist would hardly fail to identify the
said “Power.” The Editor concludes his remarkable reflections
by adding:
Thus far we learn that the Book of Enoch was
published before the Christian Era by some
great Unknown of Semitic [?] race who
believing himself to be inspired in a post-prophetic
age borrowed the name of an antediluvian
patriarch [ Who stands for the
“Solar ”or
Manvantaric Year.] to authenticate his own enthusiastic forecast of the Messianic
kingdom.
And as the contents of his marvellous book
enter freely into the composition of the New
Testament it follows that if the author was not an inspired prophet
who predicted the
teachings of Christianity he was a visionary
enthusiast whose illusions were accepted by
Evangelists and Apostles as revelation
-alternative conclusions which involve the Divine or
human origin of Christianity.[ Op Cit.,pp.xli xlii.]
Enoch Records The Races -(Page 85)The outcome of all of which is,in the words of
the same Editor:
The discovery that the language and ideas of
alleged revelation are found in a pre-existent
work,accepted by Evangelists and Apostles as
inspired but classed by modern theologians
among apocryphal productions.[ Op.cit.,p.xlviii.]
The accounts also for the unwillingness of the
reverend librarians of the Bodleian Library to publish the
Ethopian text of the Book of Enoch .
The prophecies of the Book of Enoch are
indeed prophetic,but they were intended for and cover the
records of the five Races out of the seven
-everything relating to the last two being kept secret.Thus
the remark made by the Editor of the English
translation that:
Chapter xcii.records a series of prophecies
extending from Enoch ’s own time to about one
thousand years beyond the present generation [Op.cit.,p.xxiii.]
is faulty.The prophecies extend to the end of
our present Race not merely to a “thousand years ” hence.
Very true that:
In the system of [Christian ] chronology
adopted a day stands [occasionally ] for a hundred
and a week for seven hundred years.[Loc.cit.]
But this is an arbitrary and fanciful system
adopted by Christians to make Biblical chronology fit with facts
or theories,and does not represent the
original thought.The “days ” stand for the undetermined periods
of the Side-Races,and the “weeks ” for the
Sub-Races,the Root-Races being referred to by an
expression that is not even found in the
English translation.Moreover the sentence at the bottom of page
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150:
Subsequently in the fourth week ...the visions
of the holy and the righteous shall be seen
the order of generation after generation shall
take place [xcii.9.]
is quite wrong.It stands in the original:“the
order of generation after generation has taken place on the
earth ” etc.;that is,after the first human
race procreated in the truly human way had sprung up in the
Third Root-Races:a change which entirely
alters the meaning.Then all that is given in the translation -
as very likely also in the Ethiopic text since
the copies have been sorely tampered with -as about things
which were to happen in the future is,we are
informed in the past tense of the original Chaldean MSS.
and is not prophecy but a narrative of what
had already come to pass.When Enoch begins -“to speak
from a book ”[Op.cit.,xcii.4.] he
is reading the account (Page
86)given
by a great Seer and the
prophecies are not his own but are from the
Seer.Enoch or Enoichion means “internal eye ”or Seer.
Thus every Prophet and Adept may be called
“Enoichion ” without becoming a pseudo-Enoch.But here
the Seer who compiled the present Book of
Enoch is distinctly shown as reading out from a book:
I have been born the seventh in the first week
[the seventh branch or Side-Race of the first
Sub-Race after physical generation had begun
namely in the third Root-Race ] ...But after
me in the second week [second Sub-Race ] great
wickedness shall arise [arose rather ] and in
that week the end of the first shall take
place in which mankind shall be safe.But when the
first is completed iniquity shall grow up.[Op.cit.,xcii 4-7 ]
As translated it has no sense.As it stands in
the Esoteric text it simply means,that the First Root-Race
shall come to an end during the second
Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race in the period of which time
mankind will be safe;all this having no
reference whatever to the biblical Deluge.Verse 10 th
speaks of
the sixth week [sixth Sub-Race of the Third
Root Race ] when
All those who are in it shall be darkened the
hearts of all of them shall be forgetful of wisdom [
the divine knowledge will be dying out ] and
in it shall a man ascend.
This “man ”is taken by the interpreters,for
some mysterious reasons of their own to mean
Nebuchadnezzar;he is in reality the first
Hierophant of the purely human Race (after the allegorical fall
into generation)selected to perpetuate the
dying Wisdom of the Devas (Angels or Elohim).He is the first
“Son of Man ” -the mysterious appellation
given to the divine Initiates of the first human school of the
Manushi (men),at the very close of the Third
Root-Race.He is also called the “Saviour ” as it was He
with the other Hierophants who saved the Elect
and the Perfect from the geological conflagration
leaving to perish in the cataclysm of the
Close [ At the close of every
Root-Race there comes a
cataclysm in turn by fire or water.Immediately
after the “Fall into generation ”the dross of the third Root-
Race -those who fell into sensuality by
falling off from the teaching of the Divine Instructors -were
destroyed after which the Fourth Root-Race
originated at the end of which took place the last Deluge.
(See the “Sons of God ”mentioned in Isis
Unveiled.593 et seq.)] those who forgot the primeval wisdom
in sexual sensuality.
And during its completion [of the “sixth week,”
or the sixth Sub-Race ]he shall
burn the house
of dominion [the half of the globe or the then
inhabited continent ] with fire and all the race of
the elect root shall be dispersed.[ Op.cit.,xcii xx .]
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The Book of Enoch Symbolical -(Page 87)The above applies to the Elect Initiates,and
not at all to the
Jews,the supposed chosen people or to the Babylonian
captivity as interpreted by the Christian
theologians.Considering that we find Enoch or
his perpetuator mentioning the execution of the “degree
upon sinners ” in several different weeks,[ Op.cit.,xcii 7 11 13 15.] saying that “every work of the
ungodly shall disappear from the whole earth ”
during this fourth time (the Fourth Race),it surely can
hardly apply to the one solitary Deluge of the
Bible still less to the Captivity.
It follows,therefore that as the Book of
Enoch covers the five Races of the Manvantara with a few
allusions to the last two it does not contain
“Biblical prophecies,” but simply facts taken out of the Secret
Books of the East.The Editor moreover
confesses that:
The preceding six verses,viz .13 th
15 th 16 th 17 th
and 18 th are taken from between the 14 th
and 15 th verses of the nineteenth chapter where they are to be found
in the MSS.[ Op.cit .
note p.152 ]
By this arbitrary transposition he has made
confusion still more confused.Yet he is quite right in saying
that the doctrines of the Gospels and
even of the Old Testament have been taken bodily from the Book
of Enoch,for this is as evident as the sun in heaven.The whole of the Pentate
ch was adapted to fit in
with the facts given and this accounts for the
Hebrews refusing to give the book place in their Canon
just as the Christians have subsequently
refused to admit it among their canonical works.The fact that
the Apostle Jude and many of the Christian
Fathers referred to it as a revelation and a sacred volume is,
however an excellent proof that the early
Christians accepted it;among these the most learned -as,for
instance Clement of Alexandria -understood
Christianity and its doctrines in quite a different light from
their modern successors,and viewed Christ
under an aspect that Occultists only can appreciate.The
early Nazarenes and Chrestians,as Justin
Martyr calls them were the followers of Jesus,of the true
Chrestos and Christos of
Initiation;whereas,the modern Christians,especially those of the West may be
Papists,Greeks,Calvinists,or Lutherans,but can
hardly be called Christians,i.e.,the followers of Jesus,
the Christ.
Thus the Book of Enoch is entirely
symbolical.It relates to the history of the human Races and of their
early relation to Theogony the symbols being
interblended with astronomical and cosmic mysteries.
(Page 88)One chapter is missing however in the Noachian
records (from both the Paris and
the Bodleian MSS.),namely Chapter 1viii in
Sect X;this could not be remodelled and
therefore it had to disappear disfigured
fragments alone having been left out of it.The dream
about the cows,the black,red and white
heifers,relates to the first Races,their division and
disappearance.Chapter 1xxxviii in which one of
the four Angels “went to the white cows and
taught them a mystery ”after which the mystery
being born “became a man ”refers to (a)the
first group evolved of primitive Aryans (b)to
the “mystery of the Hermaphrodite ”so called
having reference to the birth of the first
human Races as they are now.The well-known rite in
India one that has survived in that
patriarchal country to this day known as the passage or
rebirth through the cow -a ceremony to which
those of lower castes who are desirous of
becoming Brahmans have to submit -has
originated in this mystery.Let any Eastern Occultist
read with careful attention the above-named
chapter in the Book of Enoch,and he will find that
the “Lord of the Sheep ”in whom Christians and
European Mystics see Christ is the
Hierophant Victim whose name in Sanskrit we
dare not give.Again that while the Western
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Churchmen see Egyptians and Israelites in the
“sheep and wolves,”all these animals relate in
truth to the trials of the Neophyte and the
mysteries of initiation whether in India or Egypt and
to that most terrible penalty incurred by the
“wolves ”-those who reveal indiscriminately that
which is only for the knowledge of the Elect
and the “Perfect.”
The Christians who thanks to later
interpolations,[Those interpolations and alternations are
found in almost every case where figures are
given -especially whenever the numbers eleven
and twelve come in -as these are all made (by
the Christians)to relate to the numbers of
Apostles,and Tribes,and Patriarchs.The
translator of the Ethiopic text -Archbishop Laurence
-attributes them generally to “mistakes of the
transcriber ”whenever the two texts the Paris
and the Bodleian MSS.differ.We fear it is no
mistake in most cases.] have made out in that
chapter a triple prophecy relating to the
Deluge Moses and Jesus,are mistaken as in reality it
bears directly on the punishment and loss of
Atlantis and the penalty of indiscretion.(The
“Lord of the sheep ”is Karma and the “Head of
the Hierophants ”also the Supreme Initiator on
earth.)He says to Enoch who implores him to
save the leaders of the sheep from being
devoured by the beasts of prey:
I will cause a recital to be made before me
...how many they have delivered up to
destruction and ...what they will do;whether
they will act as I have commanded them or not.
Occultists Do Not Reject the Bible -
(Page 89)Of this,however they shall be ignorant;neither
shalt thou make any explanation to
them neither shalt thou reprove them;but there
shall be an account of all the destruction done
by them in their respective seasons.[Op.cit.,1xxxviii.99 100.]
...He looked in silence rejoicing they were
devoured swallowed up and carried off and
leaving them in the power of every beast for
food..[ Loc.cit.,94.This
passage as will be
presently shown has led to a very curious
discovery.]
Those who labour under the impression that the
Occultists of any nation reject the Bible in its original
text and meaning are wrong.As well reject the Books
of Thoth the Chaldaean Kabalah or the Book of
Dzyan itself.Occultists
only reject the one-sided interpretations and the human element in the Bible
which is an Occult and therefore a sacred
volume as much as the others.And terrible indeed is the
punishment of all those who transgress the
permitted limits of secret revelations.From Prometheus to
Jesus,and from Him to the highest Adept as to
the lowest disciple every revealer of mysteries has had
to become a Chrestos,a “man of sorrow ”and a
martyr.“Beware ” said one of the greatest Masters,“of
revealing the Mystery to those without ”-to
the profane the Sadducee and the unbeliever.All the great
Hierophants in history are shown ending their
lives by violent deaths -Buddha [ In
the profane history of
Gautama Buddha he dies at the good old age of
eighty and passes off from life to death peacefully with
all the serenity of a great saint as
Barthelemy St.Hilaire has it.Not so in the Esoteric and true
interpretation which reveals the real sense of
the profane and allegorical statement that makes Gautama
the Buddha die very unpoetically from the
effects of too much pork,prepared for him by Tsonda.How
one who preached that the killing of animals
was the greatest sin and who was a perfect vegetarian
could die from eating pork,is a question that
is never asked by our Orientalists,some of whom made [as
now do many charitable missionaries in Ceylon
] great fun at the alleged occurrence.The simple truth is
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that the said rice and pork are purely
allegorical.Rice stands for “forbidden fruit ”like Eve's "apple"and
means Occult knowledge with the Chinese and
Tibetans;and “pork “for Brahmanical teachings -Vishnu
having assumed in his first Avatâra the form
of a boar in order to raise the earth on the surface of the
waters of space.It is not therefore from “pork
”that Buddha died but for having divulged some of the
Brahmanical mysteries,after which seeing the
bad effects brought on some unworthy people by the
revelation he preferred instead of availing
himself of Nirvana to leave his earthly form remaining still in
the sphere of the living in order to help
humanity to progress.Hence his constant reincarnations in the
hierarchy of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas,among
other bounties.Such is the Esoteric explanation.The life
of Gautama will be more fully discussed later
on.]Pythagoras,Zoroaster most of
the great Gnostics,the
founders of their respective schools;and in
our own more modern epoch a number of Fire-Philosophers
of Rosicrucians and Adepts.All of these are
shown -whether plainly or under the veil of allegory -as
paying the penalty for the revelations they
had made.This may seem to the profane reader only
coincidence.
(Page 90)To the Occultist the death of every “Master
”is significant and appears pregnant with meaning.
Where do we find in history that “Messenger
”grand or humble an Initiate or a Neophyte who when he
was made the bearer of some hitherto concealed
truth or truths,was not crucified and rent to shreds by
the “dogs ”of envy malice and ignorance?Such
is the terrible Occult law;and he who does not feel in
himself the heart of a lion to scorn the
savage barking and the soul of a dove to forgive the poor ignorant
fools,let him give up the Sacred Science.To
succeed the Occultist must be fearless;he has to brave
dangers,dishonour and death to be forgiving
and to be silent on that which cannot be given.Those who
have vainly laboured in that direction must
wait in these days -as the Book of Enoch teaches -“until the
evildoers be consumed ”and the power of the
wicked annihilated.It is not lawful for the Occultist to seek
or even to thirst for revenge:let him
Wait until sin pass away for their [the
sinners ] names shall be blotted out of the holy books
[the astral records ] their seed shall be
destroyed and their spirits slain.[Op.cit
.cv.21.]
Esoterically Enoch is the “Son of man ”the
first;and symbolically the first Sub-Race of the Fifth Root
Race.[
In the Bible [Genesis,iv and v ] there are three distinct Enochs
[Kanoch or Chanoch ] -the son of
Cain the son of Seth and the son of Jared;but
they are all identical and two of them are mentioned for
the purpose of misleading.The years of only
the last two are given the first one being left without further
notice.]
And if his name yields for purposes of numerical and astronomical glyphs
the meaning of the
solar year or 365 in conformity to the age
assigned to him in Genesis,it is because being the seventh
he is,for Occult purposes,the personified
period of the two preceding Races with their fourteen Sub-
Races.Therefore he is shown in the Book as the
great grandfather of Noah who in his turn is the
personification of the mankind of the Fifth
struggling with that of the Fourth Root-Race -the great period
of the revealed and profaned Mysteries,when
the “sons of God ”coming down on Earth took for wives
the daughters of men and taught them the
secrets of the Angels;in other words,when the “mind-born ”
men of the Third Race mixed themselves with
those of the Fourth and the divine Science was gradually
brought down by men to Sorcery.
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SECTION IX
Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines
(Page 91)THE cosmogony of Hermes is as veiled as the
Mosaic system only it is upon its face far more in
harmony with the doctrines of the Secret
Sciences and even of Modern Science.Says the thrice great
Trismegistus,“the hand that shaped the world
out of formless pre-existent matter is no hand ” ;to which
Genesis is
made to reply “The world was created out of nothing ” although the Kabbalah denies
such a
meaning in its opening sentences.The Kabalists
have never any more than have the Indian Aryans
admitted such an absurdity.With them Fire or
Heat and Motion [ The eternal
and incessant “inbreathing
and outbreathing of Parabrahman ”or Nature the
Universe of Space whether during Manvantara or
Pralaya .] were chiefly instrumental in the formation of the world out of
pre-existing Matter.The
Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins
are the prototypes of the En Suph and Shekinah of the
Kabalists.Aditi is the original of Sephira and
the Prajâpatis are the elder brothers of the Sephiroth.The
nebular theory of Modern Science with all its
mysteries,is solved in the cosmogony of the Archaic
Doctrine;and the paradoxical though very
scientific enunciation that “cooling causes contraction and
contraction causes heat;therefore cooling
causes heat ” is shown as the chief agency in the formation of
the worlds,and especially of our sun and solar
system.
All this is contained within the small compass
of Sepher Jetsirah in its thirty-two wonderful Ways of
Wisdom signed “Jah Jehovah Sabaoth ” for
whomsoever has the key to its hidden meaning.As to the
dogmatic or theological interpretation of the
first verses in Genesis it is pertinently answered in the same
book,where speaking of the (Page 92)Three Mothers,Air Water and Fire the writer
describes them as a
balance with
The good in one scale the evil in the other
and the oscillating tongue of the Balance between
them.[Op.cit.,iii
x.]
One of the secret names of the One Eternal and
Ever-Present Deity was in every country the same and
it has preserved to this day a phonetic
likeness in the various languages.The Aum of the Hindus,the
sacred syllable had become the ‘Aéøí with the
Greeks,and the Aevum with the Romans -the Pan or All.
The “thirtieth way ” is called in the Sepher
Jetzirah the “gathering understanding ”because
Thereby gather the celestial adepts judgments
of the stars and celestial signs,and their
observations of the orbits are the perfection
of science.[Op.cit.,30.]
The thirty-second and last is called therein
the “serving understanding ” and it is so-called because it is
A disposer of all those that are serving in
the work of the Seven Planets,according to their
Hosts.[Op.cit.,32
.]
The “work ” was Initiation during which all
the mysteries connected with the “Seven Planets ” were
divulged and also the mystery of the
“Sun-Initiate ” with his seven radiances or beams cut off -the glory
and triumph of the anointed the Christos;a
mystery that makes plain the rather puzzling expression of
Clemens:
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For we shall find that very many of the dogmas
that are held by such sects [of Barbarian and
Hellenic Philosophy ] as have not become
utterly senseless,and are not cut out from the order
of nature [“by cutting off Christ ”[ Those who are aware of the term
Christos was applied by
the Gnostics to the Higher Ego (the ancient
Pagan Greek Initiates doing the same),will readily
understand the allusion.Christos was said to
be cut off from the lower Ego Chrestos,after the
final and supreme Initiation when the two
became blended in one;Chrestos being conquered
and resurrected in the glorified Christos
-Franck,Die Kabbala,75:Dunlap Sod Vol.11.] or
rather Chrestos ] ...Correspond in their
origin and with the truth as a whole.[ Stromateis,1.
xiii.]
In Isis Unveiled [ Op.cit.,II.viii.] the reader will find fuller
information than can be given here on the Zohar
and its author the great Kabalist Simeon Ben
Jochai.It is said there that on account of his being known
to be in possession of the secret knowledge
and of the Mercaba which insured the reception of the
“Word ” his very life was endangered and he
had to fly to the wilderness,where he lived in a cave for
twelve years surrounded by faithful
disciples,and finally died there amid signs and wonders.[ Many are
the marvels recorded as having taken place at
his death or we should rather say his translation;for he
did not die as others do but having suddenly
disappeared while a dazzling light filled the cavern with
glory his body was again seen upon its
subsidence.When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual
semi-darkness of the gloomy cave -then only
says Ginsburg “the disciples of Israel perceived that the
lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His
biographers tell us that there were voices heard from Heaven
during the preparation for his funeral and at
his interment when the coffin was lowered into the deep
cave prepared for it a flame broke forth and a
voice mighty and majestic pronounced these words:'This
is he who caused the earth to quake and the
kingdoms to shake!']
The Kabalah and The Book of Enoch -(Page 93)His teachings on the origin of the Secret
Doctrine or
as he also calls it the Secret Wisdom are the
same as those found in the East with the exception that in
place of the Chief of a Host of Planetary
Spirits he puts “God ”saying that this Wisdom was first taught
by God himself to a certain number of Elect
Angels;whereas in the Eastern Doctrine the saying is
different as will be seen.
Some synthetic and Kabalistic studies on the
sacred Book of Enoch and the Taro (Rota)are before us.
We quote from the MS.copy of a Western
Occultist who is prefaced by these words:
There is but one Law one Principle one Agent
one Truth and one Word.That which is above
is analogically as that which is below.All
that which is,is the result of quantities and of
equilibriums.
The axiom of Eliphas Levi and this triple
epigraph show the identity of thought between the East and the
West with regard to the Secret Science which
as the same MS tells us,is:
The key of things concealed the key of the
sanctuary.This is the Sacred Word which gives to
the Adept the supreme reason of Occultism and
its Mysteries.It is the Quintessence of
Philosophies and of Dogmas;it is the Alpha and
Omega;it is the Light Life and Wisdom
Universal.
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The Taro of the sacred Book of Enoch,or
Rota is prefaced moreover with this explanation:
The antiquity of this book is lost in the
night of time.It is of Indian origin and goes back to an
epoch long before Moses ...It is written upon
detached leaves,which at the first were of fine
gold and precious metals ...It is symbolical
and its combinations adapt themselves to all the
wonders of the Spirit.Altered by its passage
across the Ages,it is nevertheless preserved -
thanks to the ignorance of the curious -in its
types and its most important primitive figures.
This is the Rota of Enoch now called Taro of
Enoch to which de Mirville alludes,as we saw as the
means used for “evil Magic.”the (Page 94)“metallic plates [or leaves ] escaped from
destruction during the
Deluge ”and which are attributed by him to
Cain.They have escaped the Deluge for the simple reason
that this Flood was not “Universal.”And it is
said to be “of Indian origin ” because its origin is with the
Indian Aryans of the first Sub-Race of the
Fifth Root-Race before the final destruction of the last
stronghold of Atlantis.But if it originated
with the forefathers of the primitive Hindus,it was not in India
that it was first used.Its origin is still
more ancient and must be traced beyond and into the Himaleh
[ Pockocke may be was not altogether wrong in deriving the
German Heaven Himmel from Himalaya;
nor can it be denied that it is the Hindu
Kailasa (Heaven)that is the father of the Greek Heaven (Koilon),
and of the Latin Coelum.] the Snowy Range.It was born in that
mysterious locality which no one is able
to locate and which is the despair of both
Geographers and Christian Theologians -the regions in which
the Brahman places his Kailasa the Mount
Sumeru and the Pârvatî Pamîr transformed by the Greeks
into Paropamisus.
Round this locality which still exists the
traditions of the Garden of Eden were built.From these regions
the Greeks obtained their Parnassus [ See Pockocke's India in Greece and
his derivation of Mount
Parnassus from Parnasa the leaf and branch
huts of the Hindu ascetics,half shrine and half habitation.
“Part of the Par-o-Pamisus (the hill of
Bamian),is called Parnassus.“These mountains are called
Devanica because they are so full of Devas of
Gods,called “Gods of the Earth:”Bhu Devas.They lived
according to the Puranas,in bowers or
huts,called Parnasas,because they were made of leaves;
(Parnas),”p.302.] and thence proceeded most of the biblical personages,some of
them in their day men
some demigods and heroes,some -though very few
-myths,the astronomical double of the former.
Abram was one of them -a Chaldaean Brâhman [Rawlinson is justly very confident of
an Aryan and
Vedic influence on the early mythology and
history of Babylon and Chaldea .] says
the legend
transformed later after he had repudiated his
Gods and left his Ur (p r “town ”?)in Chaldaea into A-
brahms [This
is a Secret Doctrine affirmation and may or may not be accepted.Only Abrahm
Isaac and
Judah resemble terribly the Hindu Brahmâ
Ikshvâku and Yadu.] (or A-braham
”no-brâhman ”who
emigrated.Abram becoming the “father of many
nations ”is thus explained.The student of Occultism has
to bear in mind that every God and hero in
ancient Pantheons (that of the Bible included),has three
biographies in the narrative so to say running
parallel with each other and each connected with one of
the aspects of the hero -historical
astronomical and perfectly mythical the last serving to connect the
other two together and smooth away the
asperities and discordancies in the narrative and gathering into
one or more symbols the verities of the first
two.Localities are made to correspond with astronomical and
even with psychic events.
Numbers and Measures -(Page 95)History was thus made captive by ancient
Mystery to become later
on the great Sphynx of the nineteenth
century.Only instead of devouring her too dull querists who will
unriddle her whether she acknowledges it or
not she is desecrated and mangled by the modern
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Oedipus,before he forces her into the sea of
speculations in which the Sphynx is drowned and perishes.
This has now become self-evident not only
through the Secret Teachings,parsimoniously as they may
be given but by earnest and learned
Symbologists and even Geometricians.The Key to the Hebrew
Egyptian Mystery in which a learned Mason of Cincinnati Mr.Ralston Skinner
unveils the riddle of a
God with such ungodly ways about him as the
Biblical Jah-ve is followed by the establishment of a
learned society under the presidentship of a
gentleman from Ohio and four vice-presidents one of whom
is Piazzi Smith the well-known Astronomer and
Egyptologist.The Director of the Royal Observatory in
Scotland and author of The Great
Pyramid,Pharaonic by name,H manitarian by fact,its Marvels,
Mysteries,and its Teachings,is seeking to prove the same problem as the American author
and Mason;
namely that the English system of measurement
is the same as that used by the ancient Egyptians in
the construction of their Pyramid or in
Mr.Skinner's own words that the Pharaonic “source of measures ”
originated the “British inch and the ancient
cubit.” It “originated ”much more than this,as will be fully
demonstrated before the end of the next
century.Not only is everything in Western religion related to
measures,geometrical figures,and
time-calculations,the principal period-durations being founded on
most of the historical personages,[ It is said in The Gnostics and
their Remains by C.W.King (p.13)with
regard to the names of Brahma and Abram:“This
figure of the man Seir Anpin consists of 243 numbers,
being the numerical value of the letters in
the name ‘Abram ’ signifying the different orders in the celestial
Hierarchies.In fact the names Abram and Brahma
are equivalent in numerical value.”Thus to one
acquainted with Esoteric Symbolism it does not
seem at all strange to find in the Loka-pâlas (the four
cardinal and intermediate points of the
compass personified by eight Hindu Gods)Indra ’s elephant
names Abhra -(matanga)and his wife
Abhramu.Abhra is in a way a Wisdom Deity since it is this
elephant ’s head that replaced that of Ganesha
(Ganapati)the God of Wisdom cut off by Shiva.Now
Abhra means “cloud ”and it is also the name of
the city where Abram is supposed to have resided -
when read backwards -“Arba (Kirjath)the city
of four ...Abram is Abra with an appended m final and
Abra read backward is Arba ”(Key to the
Hebrew Egyptian Mystery).The author might have added that
Abra meaning in Sanskrit “in or of the
clouds,”the cosmo-astronomical symbol of Abram becomes still
plainer.All of these ought to be read in their
originals in Sanskrit.] but the
latter are also connected with
heaven and earth truly only with the
Indo-Aryan heaven and earth not with those of Palestine.
The prototypes of nearly all the biblical
personages are to be sought (Page 96)for in the early Pantheon of
India.It is the “Mind-born ”Sons of Brahma or
rather of the Dhyâni-Pitara (the “Father -Gods ”),the “Sons
of Light ” who have given birth to the “Sons
of Earth ”-the Patriachs.For if the Rig Veda and its three
sister Vedas have been “milked out from
fire air and sun ” or Agni Indra and Surya as Man -Smriti tells
us,the Old Testament was most
undeniably “milked out ”of the most ingenious brains of Hebrew
Kabalists partly in Egypt and partly in
Babylonia -“the seat of Sanskrit literature and Brahman learning
from her origin.”as Colonel Vans Kennedy truly
declared.One of such copies was Abram or Abraham
into whose bosom every orthodox Jew hopes to
be gathered after death that bosom being localised as
“heaven in the clouds ”or Abhra.[ Before these theories and
speculations -we are willing to admit they
are such -are rejected the following few
points ought to be explained.(1)Why after leaving Egypt was
the patriarch ’s name changed by Jehovah from
Abram to Abraham.(2)Why Sarai becomes on the same
principle Sarah (Gen.,xvii.).(3)Whence
the strange coincidence of names?(4)Why should Alexander
Polyhistor say that Abraham was born at
Kamarina or Uria a city of soothsayers and invented
Asrronomy?(5)“The Abrahamic recollections go
back at least three millenniums beyond the grandfather
of Jacob “says Bunsen (Egypt ’s Place in
History.v.35.)]
From Abraham to Enoch ’s Taro there seems to
be a considerable distance yet the two are closely
related by more than one link,Gaffarel has
shown that the four symbolical animals on the twenty-first key
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of the Taro at the third septenary are the
Teraphim of the Jews invented and worshipped by Abram ’s
father Terah and used in the oracles of the
Urim and Thummim.Moreover astronomically Abraham is
the sun-measure and a portion of the sun while
Enoch is the solar year as much as are Hermes or Thot;
and Thot numerically “was the equivalent of
Moses,or Hermes,”“the lord of the lower realms,also
esteemed as a teacher of wisdom ”the same
Mason-mathematician tells us;and the Taro being
according to one of the latest bulls of the
Pope “an invention of Hell ”the same “as Masonry and
Occultism ”the relation is evident.The Taro
contains indeed the mystery of all such transmutations of
personages into sidereal bodies and vice
versa .The “wheel of Enoch ”is an archaic invention the most
ancient of all for it is found in
China.Eliphas Levi says there was not a nation but had it its real meaning
being preserved in the greatest secrecy.It was
a universal heirloom.
As we see neither the Book of Enoch (his
“Wheel ”),nor the Zohar nor any other kabalistic volume
contains merely Jewish wisdom.
The Doctrine Belongs to All
(Page 97)The doctrine itself being the result of whole
millenniums of thought is therefore the
joint property of Adepts of every nation under
the sun.Nevertheless,the Zohar teaches
practical Occultism more than any other work
on that subject;not as it is translated and
commented upon by its various critics though
but with the secret signs on its margins.These
signs contain the hidden instructions,apart
from the metaphysical interpretations and apparent
absurdities so fully credited by Josephus,who
was never initiated and gave out the dead letter
as he had received it.[ Isis Unveiled,ii.350.]
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SECTION X
Various Occult Systems of Interpretations
-of Alphabets and Numerals
(Page 98)THE transcendental methods of the Kabalah must
not be mentioned in a public work;but its
various systems of arithmetical and
geometrical ways of unriddling certain symbols may be described.
The Zohar methods of calculation with
their three sections,the Gematria Notaricon and Temura also
the Albath and Algath are extremely difficult
to practice.We refer those who would learn more to
Cornelius Agrippa ’s works [ See Isis Unveiled ii.218-300.Gematria
is formed by a metathesis from the
Greek word ãñáììáôåéáNotaricon may be compared
to stenography;Temura is permutation -a way of
dividing the alphabet and shifting letters.] But none of those systems can ever
be understood unless a
Kabalist becomes a real Master in his
Science.The Symbolism of Pythagoras requires still more arduous
labour.His symbols are very numerous,and to
comprehend even the general gist of his abstruse
doctrines from his Symbology would necessitate
years of study.His chief figures are the square (the
Tetraktys)the equilateral triangle the point
within a circle the cube the triple triangle and finally the
forty-seventh proposition of Euclid ’s
Elements of which proposition Pythagoras was the inventor.But
with the exception none of the foregoing
symbols originated with him,as some believe.Millenniums
before his day they were well known in India
whence the Samian Sage brought them not as a
speculation but as a demonstrated Science says
Porphyry quoting from the Pythagorean Moderatus.
The numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical
symbols by means whereof he explains all
ideas concerning the nature of things.[ De Vita Pythag.]
Numbers and Magic -(Page 99)The fundamental geometrical figure of the Kabalah as
given in the Book
of N mbers,[ We
are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the catalogue of
any
European library;but it is one of the “Books
of Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made
from it in the works of a number of ancient
and mediaeval philosophical authors.Among these authorities
are Arnoldo di Villanova ’s Rosari m
Philosoph.,Francesco Arnuphi ’s Op s de Lapide Hermes
Trismegistus ’ Tractat s de Transm tatione
Metallor m and Tab la Smaragdina and above all the treatise
of Raymond Lully Ab Angelis Op s Divin m de
Q inta Essentia.] that figure which tradition and the
Esoteric Doctrines tell us was given by the
Deity Itself to Moses on Mount Sinai [Exod
s,xxv.40.]
contains the key to the universal problem in
its grandiose because simple combinations.This figure
contains in itself all the others.
The Symbolism of numbers and their
mathematical interrelations is also one of the branches of Magic,
especially of mental Magic,divination and
correct perception in clairvoyance.Systems differ but the root
idea is everywhere the same.As shown in the Royal
Masonic Cyclopaedia by Kenneth R.H.Mackenzie:
One system adopts unity another trinity a
third quinquinity;again we have sexagons,
heptagons,novems,and so on until the mind is
lost in the survey of the materials alone of a
science of numbers.[S b voce “Numbers.”]
The Devanâgarî characters in which Sanscrit is
generally written have all that the Hermetic,Chaldaean
and Hebrew alphabets have and in addition the
Occult significance of the “eternal sound ”and the
meaning given to every letter in its relation
to spiritual as well as terrestrial things.As there are only
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twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and
ten fundamental numbers,while in the Devanâgarî there
are thirty-five consonants and sixteen vowels,making
altogether fifty-one simple letters,with numberless
combinations in addition the margin for
speculation and knowledge is in proportion considerably wider.
Every letter has is equivalent in other
languages,and its equivalent in a figure or figures of the calculation
table.It has also numerous other
significations,which depend upon the special idiosyncrasies and
characteristics of the person object or
subject to be studied.As the Hindus claim to have received the
Devanagari characters from Sarasvati the
inventress of Sanskrit the “language of the Devas ”or Gods
(in their exoteric pantheon),so most of the
ancient nations claimed the same privilege for the origin of
their letters and tongue.The Kabalah (Page 100)calls the Hebrew alphabet the “letters of the
Angels,”
which were communicated to the Patriarchs,just
as the Devanagari was to the Rishis by the Devas.The
Chaldaeans found their letters traced in the
sky by the “yet unsettled stars and comets,” says the Book of
N mbers ;while
the Phoenicians had a sacred alphabet formed by the twistings of the sacred
serpents.
The Natar Khari (hieratic alphabet)and secret
(sacerdotal)speech of the Egyptians is closely related to
the oldest “Secret Doctrine Speech.”It is a
Devanâgarî with mystical combinations and additions,into
which the Senzar largely enters.
The power and potency of numbers and
characters are well known to many Western Occultists as being
compounded from all these systems,but are
still unknown to Hindu students,if not to their Occultists.In
their turn European Kabalists are generally
ignorant of the alphabetical secrets of Indian Esoterism.At
the same time the general reader in the West
knows nothing of either;least of all how deep are the
traces left by the Esoteric numeral systems of
the world in the Christian Churches.
Nevertheless this system of numerals solves
the problem of cosmogony for whomsoever studies it while
the system of geometrical figures represents
the numbers objectively.
To realise the full comprehension of the
Deific and the Abstruse enjoyed by the Ancients,one has to
study the origin of the figurative
representations of their primitive Philosophers.The Books of Hermes are
the oldest repositories of numerical Symbology
in Western Occultism.In them we find that the number
ten [See Johannes
Meursius,Denari s Pythagoricus.]
is the Mother of the Soul Life and Light being
therein united.For as the sacred anagram
Teruph shows in the Book of Keys (Numbers),the number 1
(one)is born from spirit and the number 10
(ten)from Matter:“the unity has made the ten the ten the
unity ”;and this is only the Pantheistic axiom
in other words “God in Nature and Nature in God.”
The kabalistic Gematria is arithmetical not
geometrical.It is one of the methods for extracting the hidden
meaning from letters,words and sentences.It
consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they
bear in numbers,in outward shape as well as in
their individual sense.As illustrated by Ragon:
The figure I signified the living man (a body
erect)man being the only living being enjoying
this faculty.A head being added to it the
glyph (or letter)P was obtained meaning paternity
creative potency;the R signifying the walking
man (with his foot forward)going iens,it rus
[ Ragon Maconnerie Occulte,p.426.note.]
Gods and Numbers -
(Page 101)The characters were also made supplementary to
speech every letter being at once
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a figure representing a sound for the ear and
idea to the mind;as,for instance the letter F
which is a cutting sound like that of air
rushing quickly through space;fury fusee fugue all
words expressive of and depicting what they
signify.[Ibid.,p.432
note.]
But the above pertains to another system that
of the primitive and philosophical formation of the letters
and their outward glyphic form -not to
Gematria.The Temura is another kabalistic method by which any
word could be made to yield its mystery out of
its anagram.So in Sepher Jetzirah we read “One -the
spirit of the Alahim of Lives.” In the oldest
kabalistic diagrams the Sephiroth (the seven and the three)are
represented as wheels or circles,and Adam Kadmon
the primitive Man as an upright pillar.“Wheels and
seraphim and the holy creatures ”(Chioth)says
Rabbi Akiba.In still another system of the symbolical
Kabalah called
Albath -which arranges the letters of the alphabet by pairs in three rows -all
the couples
in the first row bear the numerical value
ten;and in the system of Simeon Ben Shetah (an Alexandrian
Neoplatonist under the first Ptolemy)the
uppermost couple -the most sacred of all -is preceded by the
Pythagorean cypher:one and a nought -10.
All beings,from the first divine emanation or
“God manifested ”down to the lowest atomic existence
“have their particular number which
distinguishes each of them and becomes the source of their
attributes and qualities as of their
destiny.”Chance as taught by Cornelius Agrippa is in reality only an
unknown progression;and time but a succession
of numbers.Hence futurity being a compound of
chance and time these are made to serve Occult
calculations in order to find the result of an event or
the future of one ’s destiny.Said Pythagoras:
There is a mysterious connection between the
Gods and numbers,on which the science of
arithmancy is based.The soul is a world that
is self-moving;the soul contains in itself and is,
the quaternary the tetraktys [the perfect cube
].
There are lucky and unlucky or beneficent and
maleficent numbers.Thus while the ternary -the first of
the odd numbers (the one being the perfect and
standing by itself in Occultism)-is the divine figure or
the triangle;the duad was disgraced by the
Pythagoreans from the (Page
102)first.It
represented Matter
the passive and evil principle -the number of
Maya illusion.
While the number one symbolized harmony
order or the good principle (the one God
expressed in Latin by Solus,from which the
word Sol the Sun the symbol of the Deity),
number two expressed a contrary
idea.The science of good and evil began with it.All that is
double false opposed to the only reality was
depicted by the binary.It also expressed the
contrasts in Nature which are always
double:night and day light and darkness,cold and heat
dampness and dryness,health and sickness,error
and truth male and female etc....The
Romans dedicated to Pluto the second month of
the year and the second day of that month to
expiations in honour of the Manes.Hence the
same rite established by the Latin Church and
faithfully copied.Pope John XIX instituted in
1003 the Festival of the Dead which had to be
celebrated on the 2 nd
of November the second month of autumn.[ Extracted from Ragon
Maconnerie Occulte.p.427 note .]
On the other hand the triangle a purely
geometrical figure had great honour shewn it by every nation
and for this reason:
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In geometry a straight line cannot represent
an absolutely perfect figure any more than two
straight lines.Three straight lines,on the
other hand produce by their junction a triangle or
the first absolutely perfect figure.Therefore
it symbolized from the first and to this day the
Eternal -the first perfection.The word for
deity in Latin as in French begins with D in Greek
the delta or triangle Ä,whose three sides
symbolize the trinity or the three kingdoms,or
again divine nature.In the middle is the
Hebrew Yod the initial of Jehovah [see Eliphas Levi ’s
Dogme et Rit el,i.154 ] the animating spirit or fire the generating
principle represented by the
letter G the initial of “God ”in the northern
languages,whose philosophical significance is
generation.[ Summarised from Ragon ibid .p.428 note.]
As stated correctly by the famous Mason Ragon
the Hindu Trimurti is personified in the world of ideas by
Creation Preservation and Destruction or
Brahma Vishnu and Shiva;in the world of matter by Earth
Water and Fire or the Sun and symbolised by
the Lotus,a flower that lives by earth water and the sun.
[ Ragon mentions the curious fact that the first four numbers
in German are named after the elements.
“Ein or one means the air the element which
ever in motion penetrates matter throughout and whose
continual ebb and tide is the universal
vehicle of life.“
Zwei two is derived from the old German Zweig
signifying germ fecundity;it stands for earth the fecund
mother of all.“
Drei three is the trienos of the
Greeks,standing for water whence the Sea-gods,Tritons:and trident the
emblem of Neptune -the water or sea in general
being called Amphitrite (surrounding water).“
Vier four a number meaning in Belgiam fire
...It is in the quaternary that the first solid figure is found
the universal symbol of immortality the
Pyramid ‘whose first syllable means fire.’ Lysis and Timaeus of
Loeris claimed that there was not a thing one
could name that had not the quaternary for its root...The
ingenious and mystical idea which led to the
veneration of the ternary and the triangle was applied to
number four and its figure:it was said to
express a living being I the vehicle of the triangle 4 vehicle of
God or man carrying in him the divine
principle.”
Finally “the Ancients represented the world by
the number five.Diodorus explains it by saying that the
number represents earth fire water air and
ether or spiritus.Hence the origin of Pente (five)and of Pan
(the God)meaning in Greek all.”(Compare Ragon.op.cit.,pp.428-430.)It
is left with the Hindu
Occultists to explain the relation this
Sanskrit word Pancha (five)has to the elements the Greek Pente
having for its root the Sanskrit term.] The Lotus,sacred to Isis had the
same significance in Egypt
whereas in the Christian symbol the Lotus,not
being found in either Judaea or Europe was replaced by
the water-lily.
The Universal Language -(Page 103)In every Greek and Latin Church in all the
pictures of the
Annunciation the Archangel Gabriel is depicted
with this trinitarian symbol in his hand standing before
Mary while above the chief altar or under the
dome the Eye of the Eternal is painted within a triangle
made to replace the Hebrew Yod or God.
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Truly says Ragon there was a time when numbers
and alphabetical characters meant something more
than they do now -the images of a mere
insignificant sound.
Their mission was nobler then.Each of them
represented by its form a complete sense which
besides the meaning of the word had a double [ The system of the so-called Senzar
characters is still more wonderful and
difficult since each letter is made to yield several
meanings,a sign placed at the commencement
showing the true meaning .] interpretation
adapted to a dual doctrine.Thus when the sages
desired to write something to be understood
only by the savants,they confabulated a story
a dream or some other fictitious subject with
personal names of men and localities,that
revealed by their lettered characters the true
meaning of the author by that narrative.Such
were all their religious creations.[Ragon
Op,
cit.,p.431
note.]
Every appellation and term had its raison
d'être.The name of a plant or mineral denoted its nature to the
Initiate at the first glance.The essence of
everything was easily perceived by him once that it was figured
by such characters.The Chinese characters have
preserved much of this graphic and pictorial character
to this day though the secret of the full
system is lost.Nevertheless,even now there are those among
that nation who can write a long narrative a
volume on one page;and the symbols that are explained
historically allegorically and astronomically
have survived until now.
Moreover there exists a universal language
among the Initiates,which an Adept and even a disciple of
any nation may understand by reading it in his
own language.We Europeans,on the contrary possess
only one graphic sign common to all
&(and);there is a language richer in metaphysical terms than any
on earth whose every (Page 104)word is expressed by like common signs.The
Litera Pythagorae so
called the Greek Y (the English capital Y)if
traced alone in a message was as explicit as a whole page
filled with sentences,for it stood as a symbol
for a number of things -for white and black Magic,for
instance.[The Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue of vice
and stands also for the
numeral 150 and with a dash over the letter Y
for 150.000.]Suppose one man
enquired of another:To
what School of Magic does so and so belong?And
the answer came back with the letter traced with the
right branch thicker than the left then it
meant “to right hand or divine Magic;”but if the letter was traced
in the usual way with the left branch thicker
than the right then it meant the reverse the right or left
branch being the whole biography of a man.In
Asia especially in the Devanâgarî characters,every letter
had several secret meanings.
Interpretations of the hidden sense of such
apocalyptic writings are found in the keys given in the
Kabalah and
they are among its more secret lore.St.Hieronymus assures us that they were
known to
the School of the Prophets and taught therein
which is very likely.Molitor the learned Hebraist in his
work on tradition says that:
The two and twenty letters of the Hebrew
alphabet were regarded as an emanation or the
visible expression of the divine forces
inherent in the ineffable name.
These letters find their equivalent in and are
replaced by numbers,in the same way as in the other
systems.For instance the twelfth and the sixth
letter of the alphabet yield eighteen in a name;the other
letter of that name added being always
exchanged for that figure which corresponds to the alphabetical
letter;then all those figures are subjected to
an algebraical process which transforms them again into
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letters;after which the latter yield to the
enquirer “the most hidden secrets of divine Permanency (eternity
in its immutability)in the Futurity.”
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SECTION XI
The Hexagon with the Central Point or The
Seventh Key
(Page 105)Arguing the virtue in names (Baalshem),Molitor
thinks it impossible to deny that the Kabalah -
its present abuses notwithstanding -has some
very profound and scientific basis to stand upon.And if it
is claimed he argues,
That before the Name of Jesus every other Name
must bend why should not the
Tetragrammaton have the same power?[ Tradition chap on “Numbers.”]
This is good sense and logic.For if Pythagoras
viewed the hexagon formed of two crossed triangles as
the symbol of creation and the Egyptians,as
that of the union of fire and water (or of generation),the
Essenes saw in it the seal of Solomon the Jews
the Shield of David the Hindus the sign of Vishnu (to
this day);and if even in Russia and Poland the
double triangle is regarded as a powerful talisman -then
so widespread a use argues that there is
something in it.It stands to reason indeed that such an
ancient and universally revered symbol should
not be merely laid aside to be laughed at by those who
know nothing of its virtues or real Occult
significance.To begin with even the known sign is merely a
substitute for the one used by the
Initiates.In a Tântrika work in the British Museum a terrible curse is
called down upon the head of him who shall
ever divulge to the profane the real Occult hexagon known
as the “Sign of Vishnu ”“Solomon ’s Seal ”etc.
The great power of the hexagon -with its
central mystic sign the T or the Svastika a septenary -is well
explained in the seventh key of Things
Concealed for it says
(Page 106)The seventh key is the hieroglyph of the
sacred septenary of royalty of the
priesthood [the Initiate ] of triumph and true
result by struggle.It is magic power in all its force
the true “Holy Kingdom.”In the Hermetic
Philosophy it is the quintessence resulting from the
union of the two forces of the great Magic
Agent [Akâsha Astral Light.] ...It is equally Jakin
and Boaz bound by the will of the Adept and
overcome by his omnipotence.
The force of this key is absolute in Magic.All
religions have consecrated this sign in their rites.
We can only glance hurriedly at present at the
long series of antediluvian works in their postdiluvian and
fragmentary often disfigured form.Although all
of these are the inheritance from the Fourth Race -now
lying buried in the unfathomed depths of the
ocean -still they are not to be rejected.As we have shown
there was but one Science at the dawn of
mankind and it was entirely divine.If humanity on reaching its
adult period has abused it -especially the
last Sub-Races of the Fourth Root-Race -it has been the fault
and sin of the practitioners who desecrated
the divine knowledge not of those who remained true to its
pristine dogmas.It is not because the modern
Roman Catholic Church faithful to her traditional
intolerance is now pleased to see in the
Occultist and even in the innocent Spiritualist and Masons,the
descendants of “the Kischuph the Hamite the
Kasdim,the Cephene the Ophite and the Khartumim ”-all
these being “the followers of Satan ”that they
are such indeed.The State or National Religion of every
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country has ever and at all times very easily
disposed of rival schools by professing to believe they were
dangerous heresies -the old Roman Catholic
State Religion as much as the modern one.
The anathema however has not made the public
any the wiser in the Mysteries of the Occult Sciences.
In some respects the world is all the better
for such ignorance.The secrets of nature generally cut both
ways and in the hands of the undeserving they
are more than likely to become murderous.Who in our
modern day knows anything of the real
significance of and the powers contained in certain characters
and signs -talismans -whether for beneficent
or evil purposes?Fragments of the Runes and the writing
of the Kischuph found scattered in old
mediaeval libraries;copies from the Ephesian and Milesian letters
or characters;the thrice famous Book of
Thoth,and the terrible treatises (still preserved)of Targes,the
Chaldaean and his disciple Tarchon the
Etruscan -who flourished long before the Trojan War -are so
many names and appellations void of sense
(though met with in classical literature)for the educated
modern scholar.Who in the nineteenth century
believes in the art described in such treatises as those
of Targes,of evoking and directing
thunderbolts?
Occult Weapons -
(Page 107)Yet the same is described in the Brâhmanical
literature and Targes copied his “thunderbolts ”
from the Astra [This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy in
one moment whole
armies;it is mentioned in the Ramayana,the
P ranas and elsewhere.] those
terrible engines of
destruction known to the Mahabharatan Aryans.A
whole arsenal of dynamite bombs would pale before
this art -if it ever becomes understood by the
Westerns.It is from an old fragment that was translated to
him that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his
idea of Vril.It is a lucky thing indeed that in the face of the
virtues and philanthropy that grace our age of
iniquitous wars,of anarchists and dynamiters,the secrets
contained in the books discovered in Numa ’s
tomb should have been burnt.But the science of Circe and
Medea is not lost.One can discover it in the
apparent gibberish of the Tantrika Sutras,the K ku-ma of
the Bhutani and the Sikhim Dugpas and
“Red-caps ”of Tibet and even in the sorcery of the Nilgiri Mula
Kurumbas.Very luckily few outside the high
practioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of the Right -
in whose hands the weird secrets of the real
meaning are safe -understand the “black ”evocations.
Otherwise the Western as much as the Eastern
Dugpas might make short work of their enemies.The
name of the latter is legion for the direct
descendants of the antediluvian sorcerers hate all those who
are not with them arguing that therefore they
are against them.
As for the “Little Albert ”-though even this
small half-esoteric volume has become a literary relic -and the
“Great Albert ”or the “Red Dragon ”together
with the numberless old copies still in existence the sorry
remains of the mythical Mother Shiptons and the
Merlins -we mean the false ones -all these are
vulgarised imitations of the original works of
the same names.Thus the “Petite Albert ” is the disfigured
imitation of the great work written in Latin
by Bishop Adalbert an Occultist of the eighth century
sentenced by the second Roman Concilium.His
work was reprinted several centuries later and named
Alberti Parvi L cii Libell s de Mirabilib s
Nat rae Arcanis.The severities of the Roman
Church have ever
been spasmodic.While one learns of this
condemnation which placed the Church as will be shown in
relation to the Seven Archangels,the Virtues
or Thrones of God in the most embarrassing position for
long centuries,it remains a (Page 108)wonder indeed to find that the Jesuits have
not destroyed the
archives with all their countless chronicles
and annals,of the History of France and those of the Spanish
Escurial along with them.Both history and the
chronicles of the former speak at length of the priceless
talisman received by Charles the Great from a
Pope.It was a little volume on Magic -or Sorcery rather -
all full of kabalistic figures,signs
mysterious sentences and invocations to the stars and planets.These
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were talismans against the enemies of the King
(les ennemis de Charlemagne ),which talismans,the
chronicler tells us,proved of great help as
“every one of them [the enemies ] died a violent death.”The
small volume Enchiridin m Leonis Papie,has
disappeared and is very luckily out of print.Again the
Alphabet of Thoth can be dimly traced in the
modern Tarot which can be had at almost every bookseller ’s
in Paris.As for its being understood or
utilised the many fortune-tellers in Paris,who make a
professional living by it are sad specimens of
failures of attempts at reading let alone correctly
interpreting the symbolism of the Tarot
without a preliminary philosophical study of the Science.The real
Tarot in its complete symbology can be found
only in the Babylonian cylinders,that any one can inspect
and study in the British Museum and
elsewhere.Any one can see these Chaldaean antediluvian
rhombs,or revolving cylinders,covered with
sacred signs;but the secrets of these divining “wheels,”or
as de Mirville calls them “the rotating globes
of Hecate ”have to be left untold for some time to come.
Meanwhile there are the “turning-tables ”of
the modern medium for the babes,and the Kabalah for the
strong.This may afford some consolation.
People are very apt to use terms which they do
not understand and to pass judgments on prima facie
evidence.The difference between White and
Black Magic is very difficult to realise fully as both have to
be judged by their motive upon which their
ultimate though not their immediate effects depend even
though these may not come for years.Between
the “right and the left hand [Magic ] there is but a cobweb
thread ”says an Eastern proverb.Let us abide
by its wisdom and wait till we have learned more.
We shall have to return at greater length to
the relation of the Kabalah to Gupta Vidya and to deal further
with esoteric and numerical systems,but we
must first follow the line of Adepts in post Christian times.
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SECTION XII
The Duty of the True Occultist Toward
Religions
(Page 109)HAVING disposed of pre-Christian Initiates and
their Mysteries -though more has to be said
about the latter -a few words must be given to
the earliest post-Christian Adepts irrespective of their
personal belief and doctrines,or their
subsequent places in History whether sacred or profane.Our task
is to analyse this adeptship with its abnormal
thaumaturgical or as now called psychological powers;to
give each of such Adepts his due by
considering firstly what are the historical records about them that
have reached us at this late day and secondly
to examine the laws of probability with regard to the said
powers.
And at the outset the writer must be allowed a
few words in justification of what has to be said.It would
be most unfair to see in these pages,any
defiance to or disrespect for the Christian religion -least of all
a desire to wound anyone ’s feelings.The
Theosophist believes in neither Divine nor Satanic miracles.At
such a distance of time he can only obtain prima
facie evidence and judge of it by the results claimed.
There is neither Saint nor Sorcerer Prophet
nor Soothsayer for him;only Adepts,or proficients in the
production of feats of a phenomenal character
to be judged by their words and deeds.The only
distinction he is now able to trace depends on
the results achieved -on the evidence whether they were
beneficent or maleficent in their character as
affecting those for or against whom the powers of the Adept
were used.With the division so arbitrarily
made between proficients in “miraculous ”doings of this or that
Religion by their respective followers and
advocates,the Occultist cannot and must not be concerned.
The Christian whose Religion commands (Page 110)him to regard Peter and Paul as Saints,and
divinely
inspired and glorified Apostles,and to view
Simon and Apollonius as Wizards and Necromancers,helped
by and serving the ends of supposed Evil
Powers -is quite justified in thus doing if he be a sincere
orthodox Christian.But so also is the
Occultist justified if he would serve truth and only truth in rejecting
such a one-sided view.The student of Occultism
must belong to no special creed or sect yet he is bound
to show outward respect to every creed and
faith if he would become an Adept of the Good Law.He
must not be bound by the prejudged and
sectarian opinions of anyone and he has to form his own
opinions and to come to his own conclusions in
accordance with the rules of evidence furnished to him
by the Science to which he is devoted.Thus,if
the Occultist is,by way of illustration a Buddhist then
while regarding Gautama Buddha as the grandest
of all the Adepts that lived and the incarnation of
unselfish love boundless charity and moral
goodness,he will regard in the same light Jesus -
proclaiming Him another such incarnation of
every divine virtue.He will reverence the memory of the
great Martyr even while refusing to recognise
in Him the incarnation on earth of the One Supreme Deity
and the “Very God of Gods ”in Heaven.He will
cherish the ideal man for his personal virtues,not for the
claims made on his behalf by fanatical
dreamers of the early ages,or by a shrewd calculating Church
and Theology.He will even believe in most of
the “assorted miracles,”only explaining them in
accordance with the rules of his own Science
and by his psychic discernment.Refusing them the term
“miracle ”-in the theological sense of an
event “contrary to the established laws of nature ’ -he will
nevertheless view them as a deviation from the
laws known (so far)to Science quite another thing.
Moreover the Occultist will on the prima
facie evidence of the Gospels -whether proven or not -class
most of such works as beneficent divine
Magic,though he will be justified in regarding such events as
casting out devils into a herd of swine [ Matthew,viii.30-34.] as allegorical and as pernicious to
true faith
in their dead-letter sense.This is the view a
genuine impartial Occultist would take.And in this respect
even the fanatical Mussulmans who regard Jesus
of Nazareth as a great Prophet and show respect to
Him are giving a wholesome lesson in charity
to Christians,who teach and accept that “religious
tolerance is impious and absurd ” [ Dogmatic Theology,iii.345.] and who will never refer to the
prophet
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of Islam by any other term but that of a
“false prophet.”
Christian and Non-Christian Adepts -(Page 111)It is on the principles of Occultism then that
Peter and
Simon Paul and Apollonius,will now be
examined.
These four Adepts are chosen to appear in
these pages with good reason.They are the first in post-
Christian Adeptship -as recorded in profane
and sacred writings -to strike the key-note of “miracles,”
that is of psychic and physical phenomena.It
is only theological bigotry and intolerance that could so
maliciously and arbitrarily separate the two
harmonious parts into two distinct manifestations of Divine
and Satanic Magic,into “godly ” and “ungodly ”
works.
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SECTION XIII
Post-Christian Adepts and Their Doctrines
(Page 112)WHAT does the world at large know of Peter and
Simon for example?Profane history has no
record of these two while that which the
so-called sacred literature tells us of them is scattered about
contained in a few sentences in the Acts .As
to the Apocrypha their very name forbids critics to trust to
them for information.The Occultists,however
claim that one-sided and prejudiced as they may be the
apocryphal Gospels contain far more
historically true events and facts than does the New Testament the
Acts included.The
former are crude tradition the latter [the official Gospels ] are an
elaborately made up
legend.The sacredness of the New Testament is
a question of private belief and of blind faith and while
one is bound to respect the private opinion of
one ’s neighbour no one is forced to share it.
Who was Simon Magus,and what is known of
him?One learns in the Acts simply that on account of his
remarkable magical Arts he was called “the
Great Power of God.” Philip is said to have baptised this
Samaritan;and subsequently he is accused of
having offered money to Peter and John to teach him the
power of working true “miracles,” false
ones,it is asserted being of the Devil [
viii.9 10.] This is all
if we
omit the words of abuse freely used against
him for working “miracles ”of the latter kind.Origen mentions
him as having visited Rome during the reign of
Nero [ Adv.Celsum.] and Mosheim places him along the
open enemies of Christianity;[ Eccles.Hist.,i.140.] but Occult tradition accuses him of
nothing worse
than refusing to recognise “Simeon ” as
Vicegerent of God whether that “Simeon ” was Peter or anyone
else being still left an open question with
the critics.
Unfair Criticism -(Page 113)That which Irenaeus [Contra Haereses,1.xxiii.1-4.]
and Epiphanius [
Comtra Haereses,ii 1-6.] say
of Simon Magus -namely that he represented himself as the incarnated
trinity;that in Samaria he was the Father in
Judaea the Son and had given himself out to the Gentiles as
the Holy Spirit -is simply backbiting.Times
and events change;human nature remains the same and
unaltered under every sky and in every age.The
charge is the result and product of the traditional and
now classical odi m theologic m.No
Occultists -all of whom have experienced personally more or less,
the effects of theological rancour -will ever
believe such things merely on the word of an Irenaeus,if
indeed he ever wrote the words himself.Further
on it is narrated of Simon that he took about with him a
woman whom he introduced as Helen of Troy who
had passed through a hundred reincarnations,and
who still earlier in the beginning of
aeons,was Sophia Divine Wisdom an emanation of his own
(Simon ’s)Eternal Mind when he (Simon)was the
“Father ” ;and finally that by her he had “begotten the
Archangels and Angels,by whom this world was
created ”etc.
Now we all know to what a degree of
transformation and luxuriant growth any bare statement can be
subjected and forced after passing through
only half a dozen hands.Moreover all these claims may be
explained and even shown to be true at bottom
Simon Magus was a Kabalist and a Mystic,who like so
many other reformers,endeavoured to found a
new Religion based on the fundamental teachings of the
Secret Doctrine yet without divulging more
than necessary of its mysteries.Why then should not Simon
a Mystic deeply imbued with the fact of serial
incarnations (we may leave out the number “one hundred ”
as a very probable exaggeration of his
disciples),speak of any one whom he knew psychically as an
incarnation of some heroine of that name and
in the way he did -if he ever did so?Do we not find in our
own century some ladies and gentlemen not
charlatans but intellectual persons highly honoured in
society whose inner conviction assures them
that they were -one Queen Cleopatra another one
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Alexander the Great a third Joan of Arc,and
who or what not?This is a matter of inner conviction and is
based on more or less familiarity with Occultism
and belief in the modern theory of reincarnation.The
latter differs from the one genuine doctrine
of old as will be shown but there is no rule without its
exception.
(Page 114)As to the Magus being “one with God the Father
God the Son and God the Holy Ghost ”this
again is quite reasonable if we admit that a
Mystic and Seer has a right to use allegorical language;and
in this case moreover it is quite justified by
the doctrine of Universal Unity taught in Esoteric Philosophy.
Every Occultist will say the same on (to
him)scientific and logical grounds,in full accordance with the
doctrine he professes.Not a Vedantin but says
the same thing daily:he is,of course Brahman and he is
Parabrahman once that he rejects the
individuality of his personal spirit and recognizes the Divine Ray
which dwells in his Higher Self as only a
reflection of the Universal Spirit.This is the echo in all times and
ages of the primitive doctrine of
Emanations.The first Emanation from the Unknown is the “Father [Op
cit.,ii.337.] the second the “Son ”and all and
everything proceeds from the One or that Divine Spirit
which is “unknowable.Hence the assertion that
by her (Sophia or Minerva the Divine Wisdom)he
(Simon),when yet in the bosom of the Father
himself the Father (or the first collective Emanation),begot
the Archangels -the “Son ”-who were the
creators of this world.
The Roman Catholics themselves,driven to the
wall by the irrefutable arguments of their opponents -the
learned Philologists and Symbologists who pick
to shreds Church dogmas and their authorities,and point
out the plurality of the Elohim in the Bible
-admit today that the first “creation ”of God the Tsaba or
Archangels,must have participated in the
creation of the universe.Might not we suppose:
Although “God alone created the heaven and the
earth ”...that however unconnected they
[the angels ] may have been with the
primordial ex nihilo creation they may have received a
mission to achieve to continue and to sustain
it?[ Op cit.,ii.337.]
exclaims De Mirville in answer to Renan Lacour
Maury and the t tti q anti of the French Institute.With
certain alterations it is precisely this which
is claimed by the Secret Doctrine.In truth there is not a single
doctrine preached by the many Reformers of the
first and the subsequent centuries of our era that did
not base its initial teachings on this
universal cosmogony.Consult Mosheim and see what he has to say
of the many “heresies ”he
describes.Cerinthus,the Jew
Taught that the Creator of this world ...the
Sovereign God of the Jewish people was a
Being ...who derived his birth from the
Supreme God;
that this Being moreover
Fell by degrees from his native virtue and
primitive dignity.
The Two Eternal Principles -(Page 115)Basildes,Carpocrates and Valentinus,the
Egyptian Gnostics of
the second century held the same ideas with a
few variations.Basilides preached seven Aeons (Hosts or
Archangels),who issued from the substance of
the Supreme.Two of them Power and Wisdom begot
the heavenly hierarchy of the first class and
dignity;this emanated a second;the latter a third and so on;
each subsequent evolution being of a nature
less exalted than the precedent and each creating for itself
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a Heaven as a dwelling the nature of each of
these respective Heavens decreasing in splendour and
purity as it approached nearer to the
earth.Thus the number of these Dwellings amounted to 365;and
over all presided the Supreme Unknown called
Abraxas,a name which in the Greek method of
numeration yields the number 365 which in its
mystic and numerical meaning contains the number 355
or the man value [Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the “manifested
”deities,for
number "I"is the symbol of the
Universal Unit or male principle in Nature and a number "0"the
feminine
symbol Chaos,the Deep the two forming thus the
symbol of Androgyne nature as well as the full value
of the solar year which was also the value of
Jehovah and Enoch.Ten with Pythagoras,was the symbol
of the Universe;also of Enos,the Son of Seth
or the “Son of Man ” who stands as the symbol of the solar
year of 365 days and whose years are therefore
given as 365 also.In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas
was the Sun the “Lord of the Heavens.”The
Circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle the
plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally
and this is crossed by a diameter only during Manvantaras.]
This was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of
primitive Evolution which ended with “man.”
Saturnilus of Antioch promulgated the same
doctrine slightly modified.He taught two eternal principles,
Good and Evil which are simply Spirit and
Matter.The seven Angels who preside over the seven Planets
are the Builders of our Universe -a purely
Eastern doctrine as Saturnilus was an Asiatic Gnostic.These
Angels are the natural Guardians of the seven
Regions of our Planetary System one of the most
powerful among these seven creating Angels of
the third order being “Saturn ” the presiding genius of the
Planet and the God of the Hebrew people:namely
Jehovah who was venerated among the Jews,and
to whom they dedicated the seventh day or
Sabbath Saturday -“Saturn ’s day ” among the Scandinavians
and also among the Hindus.
Marcion who also held the doctrine of the two
opposed principles of Good and Evil asserted that there
was a third Deity between the two -one of a
“mixed nature ”-the God of the Jews,the Creator (with his
Host)of the lower or our World.Though ever at
war with the Evil (Page
116)Principle
this intermediate
Being was nevertheless also opposed to the
Good Principle whose place and title he coveted.
Thus Simon was only the son of his time a
religious Reformer like so many others,and an Adept among
the Kabalists.The Church to which a belief in
his actual existence and great powers is a necessity -in
order the better to set off the “miracle
”performed by Peter and his triumph over Simon -extols
unstintingly his wonderful magic feats.On the
other hand Scepticism represented by scholars and
learned critics,tries to make away with him
altogether.Thus,after denying the very existence of Simon
they have finally thought fit to merge his
individuality entirely in that of Paul.The anonymous author of
S pernat ral Religion assiduously endeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must
understand the
Apostle Paul whose Epistles were
secretly as well as openly calumniated and opposed by Peter and
charged with containing “dysnoetic learning.”
Indeed this seems more than probable when we think of the
two Apostles and contrast their characters.
The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave
outspoken sincere and very learned;the Apostle of
Circumcision cowardly cautious,insincere and
very ignorant.That Paul had been partially at
least if not completely initiated into the
theurgic mysteries,admits of little doubt.His
language the phraseology so peculiar to the
Greek philosophers,certain expressions used
only by the Initiates,are so many sure
earmarks to that supposition.Our suspicion has been
strengthened by an able article entitled “Paul
and Plato ”by Dr.A.Wilder in which the author
puts forward one remarkable and for us,very
precious observation.In the Epistles to the
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Corinthians he shows Paul abounding with “expressions suggested by the
initiations of
Sabazius and Eleusis,and the lectures of the
(Greek)philosophers.He (Paul)designates
himself as idiotes -a person unskilful
in the Word but not in the gnosis or philosophical
learning.‘We speak wisdom among the perfect or
initiated ’ he writes,even the hidden
wisdom ‘not
the wisdom of this world nor of the Archons of this world but divine wisdom in
a
mystery secret -which none of the Archons
of this world knew.’”[I.Cor.,ii.6-8.]
What else can the Apostle mean by those
unequivocal words,but that he himself as
belonging to the Mystae (Initiated),spoke of
things shown and explained only in the
Mysteries?The “divine wisdom in a mystery
which none of the Archons of this world knew,”
has evidently some direct reference to the
Basileus of the Eleusinian Initiation who did know.
The Basileus belonged to the staff of the
great Hierophant and was an Archon of Athens,and
as such was one of the chief Mystae belonging
to the interior Mysteries,to which a very select
and small number obtained an entrance.[ Compare Taylor ’s Ele sinian and
Bacchic
Mysteries.] The
magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were called Archons.[ Isis Unveiled.ii.
89.]
We will deal however first with Simon the
Magician.
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SECTION XIV
Simon and His Biographer Hippolytus
(Page 117)AS shown in our earlier volumes,Simon was a
pupil of the Tanaim of Samaria and the
reputation he left behind him together with
the title of “the Great Power of God ”testify in favour of the
ability and learning of his Masters.But the
Tanaim were Kabalists of the same secret school as John of
the Apocalypse whose careful aim it was
to conceal as much as possible the real meaning of the names
in the Mosiac Books.Still the calumnies so
jealously disseminated against Simon Magus by the unknown
authors and compilers of the Acts and
other writings,could not cripple the truth to such an extent as to
conceal the fact that no Christian could rival
him in thaumaturgic deeds.The story told about his falling
during an aerial flight breaking both his legs
and then committing suicide is ridiculous.Posterity has
heard but one side of the story.Were the
disciples of Simon to have a chance we might perhaps find that
it was Peter who broke his legs.But as against
this hypothesis we know that this Apostle was too prudent
ever to venture himself in Rome.On the
confession of several ecclesiastical writers,no Apostle ever
performed such “supernatural wonders,” but of
course pious people will say this only the more proves
that it was the Devil who worked through
Simon.He was accused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
only because he introduced as the “Holy
Spiritus ”the Men's (Intelligence)or “the Mother of all.” But we
find the same expression used in the Book
of Enoch,in which in contradistinction to the “Son of Man ”
he speaks of the “Son of the Woman.”In the Codex
of the Nazarenes,and in the Zohar as well as in the
Books of Hermes the same expression is used;and even in the apocryphal Evangeli
m of the Hebrews
we read that Jesus admitted the female sex of
the Holy Ghost by using the expression “My Mother the
Holy Pneuma.”
(Page 118)After long ages of denial however the actual
existence of Simon Magus has been finally
demonstrated whether he was Saul Paul or
Simon.A manuscript speaking of him under the last name
has been discovered in Greece and has put a
stop to any further speculation.
In his Histoire des Trois Premiers Siecles
de L ’Eglise,[ Op.cit.,ii.395.]M.de Pressensé gives his
opinion on this additional relic of early
Christianity.Owing to the numerous myths with which the history
of Simon abounds -he says -many Theologians
(among Protestants,he ought to have added)have
concluded that it was no better than a clever
tissue of legends.But he adds:
It contains positive facts,it seems,now
warranted by the unanimous testimony of the Fathers
of the Church and the narrative of Hippolytus
recently discovered.[ Quoted by
De Mirville.Op
cit.,vi.41
and 42.]
This MS.is very far from being complimentary
to the alleged founder of Western Gnosticism.While
recognizing great powers in Simon it brands
him as a priest of Satan -which is quite enough to show
that it was written by a Christian.It also
shows that like another servant “of the Evil One ”-as Manes is
called by the Church -Simon was a baptised Christian;but
that both being too well versed in the
mysteries of true primitive Christianity
were persecuted for it.The secret of such persecution was then
as it is now quite transparent to those who
study the question impartially.Seeking to preserve his
independence Simon could not submit to the
leadership or authority of any of the Apostles,least of all to
that of either Peter or John the fanatical
author of the Apocalypse.Hence charges of heresy followed by
“anathema maranatha.”The persecutions by the
Church were never directed against Magic,when it was
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orthodox;for the new Theurgy established and
regulated by the Fathers,now known to Christendom as
“grace ”and “miracles,”was and is still when
it does happen only Magic -whether conscious or
unconscious.Such phenomena as have passed to
posterity under the name of “divine miracles ”were
produced though powers acquired by great
purity of life and ecstacy.Prayer and contemplation added to
asceticism are the best means of discipline in
order to become a Theurgist where there is no regular
initiation.For intense prayer for the
accomplishment of some object is only intense will and desire
resulting in unconscious Magic.In our own day
George Muller of Bristol has proved it.But “divine
miracles ”are produced by the same causes that
generate effects of Sorcery.
Uneven Balances -(Page 119)The whole difference rests on the good or evil effects aimed
at and on the
actor who produces them.The thunders of the
Church were directed only against those who dissented
from the formulae and attributed to themselves
the production of certain marvellous effects,instead of
fathering them on a personal God;and thus
while those Adepts in Magic Arts who acted under her direct
instructions and auspices were proclaimed to
posterity and history as saints and friends of God all others
were hooted out of the Church and sentenced to
eternal calumny and curses from their day to this.
Dogma and authority have ever been the curse
of humanity the great extinguishers of light and truth.[
Mr.St.George Lane-Fox has admirably expressed
the idea in his eloquent appeal to the many rival
schools and societies in India.“ I feel sure
”he said “that the prime motive however dimly perceived by
which you as the promoters of these
movements,were actuated was a revolt against the tyrannical and
almost universal establishment throughout all
existing social and so-called religious institutions of a
usurped authority in some external form
supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority
the indwelling spirit of truth revealed to
each individual soul true conscience in fact that supreme source
of all human wisdom and power which elevates
man above the level of the brute.”(To the Members of
the Aryan Samâj,the Theosophical
Society,Brahmo and Hind Samaj and other Religio s and
Progressive Societies in India.)]
It was perhaps the recognition of a germ of
that which later on in the then nascent Church grew into the
virus of insatiate power and ambition
culminating finally in the dogma of infallibility that forced Simon
and so many others,to break away from her at
her very birth.Sects and dissensions began with the first
century.While Paul rebukes Peter to his face
John slanders under the veil of vision the Nicolaitans,and
makes Jesus declare that he hates them.[Revelation,ii.6.] Therefore we pay little attention to
the
accusations against Simon in the MS.found in
Greece.
It is entitled Philosoph mena .Its
author regarded as Saint Hippolytus by the Greek Church is referred to
as an “unknown heretic ”by the Papists only
because he speaks in it “very slanderously ” of Pope
Callistus,also a Saint.Nevertheless,Greeks and
Latins agree in declaring the Philosoph mena to be an
extraordinary and very erudite work.Its
antiquity and genuineness have been vouched for by the best
authorities of Tubingen.
Whoever the author may have been he expresses
himself about Simon in this wise:
Simon a man well versed in magic arts,deceived
many persons partly by the (Page 120)art of
Thrasymedes,[This “art ”is not common jugglery as some define it now:it ’s a
kind of
psychological jugglery if jugglery at all
where fascination and glamour are used as means of
producing illusions.It is hypnotism on a large
scale.] and partly with the
help of demons.[ The
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author asserts in this his Christian
persuasion.]...He determined to
pass himself off as a
god...Aided by his wicked arts,he turned to
profit not only the teachings of Moses,but those
of the poets ...His disciples use to this day
his charms.Thanks to incantations,to philtres,to
their attractive caresses [ Magnetic passes,evidently followed
by a trance and sleep.] and
what they call “sleeps,”they send demons to
influence all those whom they would fascinate.
With this object they employ what they call
“familiar demons.”[ “Elementals
”used by the
highest Adept to do mechanical not
intellectual work as a physicist uses gases and other
compounds.]
Further on the MS.reads:
The Magus (Simon)made those who wished to
enquire of the demon write what their
question was on a leaf of
parchment;this,folded in four was thrown into a burning brazier in
order that the smoke should reveal the
contents of the writing to the Spirit (demon)(Philos.,IV.
IV.)Incense was thrown by handfuls on the
blazing coals,the Magus adding on pieces of
papyrus,the Hebrew names of the Spirits he was
addressing and the flame devoured all.
Very soon the divine Spirit seemed to
overwhelm the Magician who uttered unintelligible
invocations,and plunged in such a state he
answered every question -phantasmal apparitions
being often raised over the flaming brazier (ibid
.iii.);at other times fire descended from
heaven upon objects previously pointed out by
the Magician (ibid.);or again the deity evoked
crossing the room would trace fiery orbs in
its flight.(ibid .ix.).[Quoted
from De Mirville.
op.cit.,vi.43.]
So far the above statements agree with those
of Anastasius the Sinaïte:
People saw Simon causing statues to
walk;precipitating himself into the flames without being
burnt;metamorphosing his body into that of
various animals [lycanthropy ];raising at banquets
phantoms and spectres;ca sing the f rnit re
in the rooms to move abo t,by invisible spirits .
He gave out that he was escorted by a number
of shades to whom he gave the name of “souls
of the dead.”Finally he used to fly in the air
...(Anast.Patrol,Grecq e,vol.lxxxix.col.523
quaest.xx.).[ Ibid.,vi.45 .]
Suetonius says in his Nero,
In those days an Icarus fell at his first
ascent near Nero ’s box and covered it with his blood.[
Ibid.,p.46.]
This sentence referring evidently to some
unfortunate acrobat who missed his footing and tumbled is
brought forward as a proof that it was Simon
who fell.[ Amédée Fleury.Rapports
de St.Pa l avec
Sénèq e.ii.100.The
whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.]
Stones as “Evidences.”-(Page 121)But the latter ’s name is surely too famous,if one must
credit the
Church Fathers,for the historian to have
mentioned him simply as “an Icarus.” The writer is quite aware
that there exists in Rome a locality names
Simonium near the Church of SS.Cosmas and Daimanus
(Via Sacra),and the ruins of the ancient
temple of Romulus,where the broken pieces of a stone on
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which it is alleged the two knees of the
Apostle Peter were impressed in thanksgiving after his supposed
victory over Simon are shown to this day.But
what does this exhibition amount to?For the broken
fragments of one stone the Buddhists of Ceylon
show a whole rock on Adam ’s Peak with another imprint
upon it.A crag stands upon its platform a
terrace of which supports a huge boulder and on the boulder
rests for nearly three thousand years the
sacred footprint of a foot five feet long.Why not credit the
legend of the latter if we have to accept that
of St.Peter?“Prince of Apostles,”or “Prince of Reformers,”
or even the “First-born of Satan ”as Simon is
called all are entitled to legends and fictions.One may be
allowed to discriminate however.
That Simon could fly i.e.,raise himself
in the air for a few minutes,is no impossibility.Modern mediums
have performed the same feat supported by a
force that Spiritualists persist in calling “spirits.”But if
Simon did so it was with the help of a
self-acquired blind power that heeds little the prayers and
commands of rival Adepts,let alone Saints.The
fact is that logic is against the supposed fall of Simon at
the prayer of Peter.For had he been defeated
publicly by the Apostle his disciples would have
abandoned him after such an evident sign of
inferiority and would have become orthodox Christians.But
we find even the author of Philosoph mena,just
such a Christian showing otherwise.Simon had lost so
little credit with his pupils and the
masses,that he went on daily preaching in the Roman Campania after
his supposed fall from the clouds “far above
the Capitolium ”in which fall he broke his legs only!Such a
lucky fall is in itself sufficiently
miraculous,one would say.
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SECTION XV
St.Paul the Real Founder of Present
Christianity
(Page 122)We may repeat with the author of Phallicism:
We are all for construction -even for Christian,although
of course philosophical construction.
We have nothing to do with reality in man ’s
limited mechanical scientific sense or with
realism .We
have undertaken to show that mysticism is the very life and soul of religion;[ But
we can never agree with the author “that rites
and ritual and formal worship and prayers are of
absolute necessity of things,”for the external
can develop and grow and receive worship only
at the expense of and to the detriment of the
internal the only real and true.]...that
the
Bible is only misread and misrepresented
when rejected as advancing supposed fab lo s and
contradictory things;that Moses did not make mistakes,but spoke to the “children
of men ”in
the only way in which children in their
nonage can be addressed;that the world is indeed a
very different place from that which it is
assumed to be;that what is derided as superstition is
the only true and the only scientific knowledge
and moreover that modern knowledge and
modern science are to a great extent not only superstition,but
superstition of a very
destructive and deadly kind.[ H.Jennings,op.cit.,pp.37.38.]
All this is perfectly true and correct.But it
is also true that the New Testament the Acts and the Epistles
-
however much the historical figure of Jesus
may be true -all are symbolical and allegorical sayings,and
that “it was not Jesus but Paul who was the
real founder of Christianity;”[See
Isis Unveiled ii.574.] but
it
was not the official Church Christianity at
any rate.“The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch ”
the Acts of the Apostles tell us,[ xi.26.] and they were not so called before nor for a long time after but
simply Nazarenes.
This view is found in more than one writer of
the present and the past centuries.But hitherto it has
always been laid aside as an unproven
hypothesis,a blasphemous assumption;though as the author of
Pa l,the Fo nder of Christianity [Art
by Dr.A.Wilder in Evol tion .] truly says:
Abrogation of Law by Initiates -
(Page 123)Such men as Irenaeus,Epiphanius and Eusebius
have transmitted to posterity a
reputation for such untruth and dishonest
practices that the heart sickens at the story of the
crimes of that period.
The more so since the whole Christian scheme
rests upon their sayings.But we find now another
corroboration and this time on the perfect
reading of biblical glyphs.In The So rce of Measures we find
the following:
It must be borne in mind that our present
Christianity is Pa line,not Jesus.Jesus,in his life
was a Jew conforming to the law;even more He
says:“The scribes and pharisees sit in
Moses ’ seat;whatsoever therefore they command
you to do that observe and do.”And again:
“ I did not come to destroy but to fulfil the
law ”Therefore he was under the law to the day of
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his death and could not while in life abrogate
one jot or title of it.He was circumcised and
commanded circumcision.But Paul said of
circumcision that it availed nothing and he (Paul)
abrogated the law.Sa l and Pa l -that
is,Saul under the law and Paul freed from the
obligations of the law -were in one man but
parallelisms in the flesh of Jesus the man under
the law as observing it who thus died in Chrestos
and arose freed from its obligations,in the
spirit world as Christos,or the
triumphant Christ.It was the Christ who was freed but Christ
was the Spirit.Saul in the flesh was the
function of and parallel of Chrestos.Paul in the flesh
was the function and parallel of Jesus become
Christ in the spirit as an early reality to answer
to and act for the apotheosis;and so
armed with all authority in the flesh to abrogate human
law.[ Op.cit.,p.262.]
The real reason why Paul is shown as
“abrogating the law ” can be found only in India where to this day
the most ancient customs and privileges are
preserved in all their purity notwithstanding the abuse