Author of "ISIS UNVEILED."
"There is no Religion higher than Truth."
London: THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED.
7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C.
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE,
117, Nassau Street, New York.
THE MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST.
Adyar, Madras.
1888.
"Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by
H. P. Blavatsky,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C."
This Work
I Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In every Country,
And of every Race,
For they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
PRELIMINARY NOTES.
On the Archaic Stanzas, and the Four Prehistoric Continents ... 1
The Imperishable Sacred Land ... 6
The Hyperborean ... 7
Lemuria ... 7
Atlantis ... 8
The Tropics at the Pole ... 11
STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN . . . 15
THE BEGINNINGS OF SENTIENT LIVE ... 22
Man, the Third Logos ... 25
The Celestial Governors of Humanity ... 29
Parent Stars and Sister Planets ... 33
Three Kinds of Light ... 35
The Numbers of Creation ... 39
The First War in Heaven ... 45
TWO ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONOMERS ... 47
STANZA II. NATURE UNAIDED FAILS ... 52
The Monsters of Chaos ... 53
The "Double Dragon" ... 57
Who are the Flames? ... 63
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BRAHMINS ... 66
The Race that never dies ... 67
Cosmogony, an intelligent plan ... 73
STANZA III. ATTEMPTS TO CREATE MAN ... 75
The various classes of Creators ... 77
Man, a god in animal form ... 81
"Fires," "Sparks," and "Flames" ... 83
STANZA IV. CREATION OF THE FIRST RACES ... 86
Pitris of the Gods and Demons ... 89
What Prometheus symbolized ... 95
The Hammer of Thor ... 99
The Divine Rebels ... 103
Man's Father, the Sun ... 105
STANZA V. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SECOND RACE ... 109
The Secret Work of Chiram ... 113
The outgrowth of Races ... 117
Leda, Castor, and Pollux ... 121
Jah-Hovah Androgynous ... 125
The Jewish God-name ... 127
STANZA VI. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SWEAT-BORN ... 131
Bi-sexual reproduction ... 133
The Virgin Third Race ... 135
A Few Words about Deluges and Noahs ... 138
Various Deluges ... 141
The Arkite Symbols ... 143
Could Men Exist 18,000,000 Years ago? ... 148
Spontaneous Generation ... 151
The Solar System in the Puranas ... 155
Oceans of Carbonic Acid? ... 159
STANZA VII. FROM THE SEMI-DIVINE DOWN TO THE FIRST HUMAN RACES ... 161
Monads and Rounds ... 167
A Suggestive Explanation ... 171
A Saint Hypnotised ... 175
Sweat-born and Androgynes ... 177
STANZA VIII. EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS THE FIRST ... 180
Archaic Zoology ... 183
The Sin of the Mindless Men ... 185
WHAT MAY BE THE OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING ... 185
STANZA IX. THE FINAL EVOLUTION OF MAN ... 191
The Hairy Men of China ... 195
The Separation of Sexes ... 197
Primeval Language ... 199
EDENS, SERPENTS AND DRAGONS ... 202
The Garden of Eden a College ... 203
Flying Camels ... 205
Two Schools of Magic ... 211
The Flying Dragons ... 219
THE SONS OF GOD AND THE SACRED ISLAND ... 220
The Magicians of Atlantis ... 223
STANZA X. THE HISTORY OF THE FOURTH RACE ... 227
The Mysteries among the Mayas ... 229
Satanic Myths ... 233
Mahasura and Satan ... 237
Man, the pale shadow of God ... 243
The curse of Vasishta ... 247
ARCHAIC TEACHINGS IN THE PURANAS AND GENESIS ... 251
From worm to man ... 255
Identity of Human and Animal embryos ... 259
A PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE EARLY RACES ... 263
The Natural "Fall" ... 267
The Symbolism of Kronos ... 269
STANZA X. Continued ... 271
The Golden Age ... 273
No Devils outside Humanity ... 275
ARE GIANTS A FICTION? ... 277
The Seven Virgin Youths ... 281
The Tibetan Lilith ... 285
The Races of Men not all Human ... 287
THE RACES WITH THE "THIRD EYE" ... 289
Occult Physiology ... 295
The Evolution of the Eye ... 299
The Third Eye is now a Gland ... 301
THE PRIMEVAL MANUS OF HUMANITY ... 307
The Four Earlier Races ... 311
The Esoteric Meaning of " /Fish" ... 313
STANZA XI. THE CIVILIZATION AND DESTRUCTION OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH RACES ... 316
Degeneration of Mankind ... 319
Atlantis now Ocean Floor ... 325
Changes of Climate ... 329
How to Read Symbols ... 335
The Antediluvian Buddhas ... 339
CYCLOPEAN RUINS AND COLOSSAL STONES AS WITNESSES TO GIANTS ... 341
Living, Speaking, and Moving Stones ... 345
It takes a God to become a Man ... 349
STANZA XII. THE FIFTH RACE AND ITS DIVINE INSTRUCTORS ... 351
The Astronomical Dragon ... 353
Serpents and Dragons under different Symbolisms ... 355
The Sidereal and Cosmic Glyphs ... 357
Our Divine Instructors ... 365
The Origin of the Satanic Myth ... 378
Noah was a Kabir, hence he must have been a Demon ... 390
The oldest Persian Traditions about the Polar, and the Submerged Continents ... 393
Western Speculations founded on the Greek and Purβnic Traditions ... 402
The "Curse" from a Philosophical point of view ... 409
ADDITIONAL FRAGMENTS FROM A COMMENTARY ON THE VERSES OF STANZA XII. ... 423
The Oldest Records about Atlantis ... 425
The Doom of Atlantis ... 427
The Races, Sub-Races, and Family Races ... 434
CONCLUSION ... 437
ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE ... 449
§ XVI. ADAM-ADAMI ... 452
The Cabalistic Four Adams ... 457
XVII. THE "HOLY OF HOLIES": ITS DEGRADATION ... 459
Christian Symbolism ... 463
The "Four-faced" Brahma ... 465
The Old and the New Jehovah ... 469
XVIII. ON THE MYTH OF THE "FALLEN ANGEL," IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS ... 475
The Evil Spirit: Who and What? ... 475
The Gods of Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness ... 483
The many meanings of the "War in Heaven" ... 492
XIX. IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? ... 506
Jehovah's Personating Spirit ... 509
The Mysterium Magnum ... 512
The Logos and Satan are One ... 515
XX. PROMETHEUS THE TITAN ... 519
His Origin in Ancient India ... 519
The Boon he Gives ... 523
XXI. ENOICHION-HENOCH ... 529
XXII. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH ... 536
Cross and Circle ... 545
The Fall of the Cross into Matter ... 553
XXIII. THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE ... 563
When Time be no longer ... 565
The Divine Self's Wisdom ... 566
XXIV. THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECADE ... 573
Poseidon's Five Ministers ... 577
The Mystery of the Number Six ... 583
The Cross and Christian After-thought ... 587
XXV. THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD ... 590
Saptaparna ... 590
The Tetraktis in relation to the Heptagon ... 598
The Septenary Element in the Vedas ... 605
The Septenary in the Exoteric Works ... 611
Seven in Astronomy, Science and Magic ... 618
The Seven Souls of the Egyptologists ... 630
I. ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645
The Occult and the Modern Doctrines ... 649
Science is Silent on every Problem ... 653
II. THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE ... 656
Various Modes of Reproduction ... 659
A Pithecoid Man Wanted ... 669
Plastidular Souls and Conscious Nerve-Cells ... 670
The atoms of our "Father-Bathybius" ... 674
III. THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE ... 675
Insurmountable difficulties for the Darwinians ... 677
The Argument of "Rudimentary Organs" ... 683
"Epitomized History" in the Foetus ... 684
The Evidence of Skulls ... 687
IV. DURATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, RACE CYCLES, AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ... 690
Sayce's Sketch of Chronology ... 691
(a) Speculations on the Age of the Globe ... 694
The Adept-Astronomer ... 698
(b) On Chains of Planets and their Plurality ... 699
States of Consciousness ... 701
Worlds mentioned in the Bible ... 703
(c) Esoteric Geological Chronology ... 709
Parallelism of Life ... 711
The Two Sciences contrasted ... 713
The Paleolithic Landseer ... 721
Astral Man the Solution ... 728
The Kabalists and Science ... 730
V. ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES ... 731
Dhyan Chohans and these Centres ... 732
(a) Origin and Evolution of the Mammalia ... 734
(b) The European Paleolithic Races whence and how distributed ... 738
VI. GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS TRACED IN HISTORY ... 742
A Mysterious Nation ... 743
The Seven Sabbaths ... 747
"Revelation" and the "Secret Doctrine" ... 748
Druidic Stones ... 752
Races of Giants ... 755
Mazdean "Seven Earths" ... 759
(a) Statements about the Sacred Islands ... 760
The Heirloom of Atlantis ... 763
The God-bearing Land ... 765
The Power of Names ... 767
The Sons of Coelus and Terra ... 769
Southern and Northern Atlantis ... 770
Niobe and her Children ... 771
The Cycles of Time ... 773
The Titans in Prison ... 776
VII. SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS ... 778
Corroborations of Occultism by Geology ... 779
Evidence of the Flora ... 781
Atlantis necessary to Ethnology ... 783
Astraea falls on her Head ... 785
Communication between South-Sea Islands ... 788
Evidence of Language ... 790
Ragon explains Masonic Symbols ... 795
The End a fitting prelude to Truth ... 798
ΤH e;mh; didach; qujk e~stin ejmh, alla tou' pevmfantς" me.
"My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me."
John vii. 16.
MODERN science insists upon the doctrine of evolution; so do human reason and the "Secret Doctrine," and the idea is corroborated by the ancient legends and myths, and even by the Bible itself when it is read between the lines. We see a flower slowly developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed. But whence the latter, with all its predetermined programme of physical transformation, and its invisible, therefore spiritual forces which gradually develop its form, colour, and odour? The word evolution speaks for itself. The germ of the present human race must have preexisted in the parent of this race, as the seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was developed in the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may be but slightly different, but it still differs from its future progeny. The antediluvian ancestors of the present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus; why should not the progenitors of our human race have been the "giants" of the Vedas, the Vφluspa, and the Book of Genesis? While it is positively absurd to believe the "transformation of species" to have taken place according to some of the more materialistic views of the evolutionists, it is but natural to think that each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending with man, had modified its own primordial and distinctive forms. "Isis Unveiled," Vol. I., p. 153.
"Facies totius Universi, quamvis infinitis modis variet,
Manet tamen semper eadem." SPINOZA.
THE Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in this Book, the second, are drawn from the same Archaic Records as the Stanzas on Cosmogony in Book I. As far as possible a verbatim translation is given; but some of the Stanzas were too obscure to be understood without explanation. Hence, as was done in Book I., while they are first given in full as they stand, when taken verse by verse with their Commentaries an attempt is made to make them clearer, by words added in brackets, in anticipation of the fuller explanation of the Commentary.
As regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new
propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to
current religious dogmas: it teaches (a) the simultaneous
evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe; (b)
the birth of the astral, before the physical body: the former
being a model for the latter; and (c) that man, in this Round, preceded
every mammalian the anthropoids included
in the animal kingdom.*
* See Genesis ch. ii., v. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it
is said: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to
see what he would call them." Thus man was created before the animals;
for the animals mentioned in chapter i. are the signs of the Zodiac, while the
man, "male and female," is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth;
FORCES, or Angels, "made in his (God's) image and after his
likeness." The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in
the Bible. Moreover, the Second Adam is esoterically a septenary which
represents seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first Adam
the Kadmon
is the synthesis of the ten Sephiroth. Of these, the upper triad
remains in the Archetypal World as the future "Trinity," while the seven lower
Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septenate is the
second Adam. Genesis, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated, came
from Egypt. The "God" of the 1st chapter of Genesis is the Logos, and
the "Lord God" of the 2nd chapter the Creative Elohim
the lower
powers.
2
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval MEN born
simultaneously on the seven divisions of our Globe. In the Divine "Pymander"
of Hermes we find the same Seven primeval men* evolving from Nature and
"Heavenly Man," in the collective sense of the word, namely, from the Creative
Spirits; and in the fragments (collected by George Smith) of Chaldean tablets on
which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation, in the first column of the
Cutha tablet, seven human beings with the faces of ravens (black,
swarthy complexions), whom "the (Seven) great gods created," are mentioned. Or,
as explained in lines 16 and 18 "In the midst of the Earth they grew up and
became great . . . . Seven kings, brothers of the same family." These are the
Seven Kings of Edom to whom reference is made in the Kabala; the first race,
which was imperfect, i.e., was born before the "balance" (sexes)
existed, and which was therefore destroyed. (Zohar, Siphrah Dzeniouta, Idrah
Suta, 2928, La Kabbale, p. 205.) "Seven Kings, brethren,
appeared and begat children, 6,000 in number were their peoples" ( Hibbert
Lectures, p. 372). The god Nergas (death) destroyed them. "How did he destroy
them?" "By bringing into equilibrium (or balance) those who did not yet exist" (Siphrah
Dzeniouta). They were "destroyed," as a race, by being merged in
their own progeny (by exudation); that is to say, the sexless race reincarnated
in the bisexual
* Thus saith Pymander "This is the mystery that to this day was hidden.
Nature being mingled with the Heavenly man (Elohim, or Dhyanis), brought forth a
wonder . . . . Seven men, all males and females (Hermaphrodite) . . .
according to the nature of the seven Governors" Book II. v. 29) or the
seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who projected or created him. This
is very clear, but yet, see the interpretations of even our modern theologians,
men supposed to be intellectual and learned! In the "Theological and
philosophical works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian (?)
Neoplatonist," a work compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel
College, Oxford, the translator wonders "for whom these seven men are
intended?" He solves the difficulty by concluding that, as "the original pattern
man (Adam Kadmon of ch. i. Genesis) was
masculine-feminine, the seven may signify the succeeding patriarchs named in
Genesis" (p. 9) . . . A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot.
(potentially); the latter in the Androgynes; these again in the sexual, the later third Race; (for further explanation, vide infra). Were the tablets less mutilated, they would be found to contain word for word the same account as given in the archaic records and in Hermes, at least as regards the fundamental facts, if not as regards minute details; for Hermes is a good deal disfigured by mistranslations.
It is quite certain that the seeming supernaturalism of these teachings, although allegorical, is so diametrically opposed to the dead-letter statements of the Bible * as well as to the latest hypotheses of science, that it will evoke passionate denial. The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of Esoteric Philosophy must be the right ones, simply because they are the most logical, and reconcile every difficulty. Besides, we have the Egyptian "Books of Thoth," and "Book of the Dead," and the Hindu Purβnas with the seven Manus, as well as the Chaldeo-Assyrian accounts, whose tiles mention seven primitive men, or Adams, the real meaning of which name may be ascertained through the Kabala. Those who know anything of the Samothracian mysteries will also remember that the generic name of the Kabiri was the "Holy Fires," which created on seven localities of the island of Electria (or Samothrace) the "Kabir born of the Holy Lemnos" (the island sacred to Vulcan).
According to Pindar (See "Philosophomena," Miller's
edition, p. 98), this Kabir, whose name was Adamas, was, in the traditions
of Lemnos, the type of the primitive man born from the bosom of the Earth. He
was the Archetype of the first males in the order of generation, and was one of
the seven autochthonous ancestors or progenitors of mankind (ibid, p.
108). If, while coupling with this the fact that Samothrace was colonised by the
Phnicians, and before them by the mysterious Pelasgians who came from the
East, one remembers also the identity of the mystery gods of the
Phnicians, Chaldeans, and Israelites, it will be easy to discover whence came
also the confused account of the Noachian deluge. It has become undeniable of
late that the Jews, who obtained their primitive ideas about creation from
Moses, who had them from
* As it is now asserted that the Chaldean tablets, which give the allegorical
description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even to the legend of the
Tower of Babel, were written "before the time of Moses" (See G. Smith's
"Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 86), how can the
Pentateuch be called a revelation? It is simply another version of the
same story.
the Egyptians, compiled their Genesis and first Cosmogonic traditions when these were rewritten by Ezra and others from the Chaldeo-Akkadian account. It is, therefore, sufficient to examine the Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform and other inscriptions to find also therein, scattered here and there, not only the original meaning of the name Adam, Admi, or Adami,* but also the creation of seven Adams or roots of men, born of Mother Earth, physically, and of the divine fire of the progenitors, spiritually or astrally. The Assyriologists, ignorant of the esoteric teachings, could hardly be expected to pay any greater attention to the mysterious and ever-recurring number seven on the Babylonian cylinders, than they paid to it on finding the same in Genesis and the Bible. Yet the number of the ancestral spirits and their seven groups of human progeny are there, notwithstanding the dilapidated condition of the fragments, as plainly as they are to be found in "Pymander" and in the "Book of the Concealed Mystery" of the Kabala. In the latter Adam Kadmon is the Sephirothal TREE, as also the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." And that "Tree," says verse 32, "hath around it seven columns," or palaces, of the seven creative Angels operating in the spheres of the seven planets on our Globe. As Adam Kadmon is a collective name, so also is the name of the man Adam. Says George Smith in his "Chaldean Account of Genesis:"
"The word Adam used in these legends for the first human being is evidently not a proper name, but is only used as a term for mankind. Adam appears as a proper name in Genesis, but certainly in some passages is only used in the same sense as the Assyrian word" (p. 86).
Moreover, neither the Chaldean nor the Biblical deluge (the stories of
Xisuthrus and Noah) is based on the universal or even on the Atlantean deluges,
recorded in the Indian allegory of Vaivaswata Manu. They are the exoteric
allegories based on the esoteric mysteries of Samothrace. If the older
Chaldees knew the esoteric truth concealed in the Purβnic legends, the other
nations were aware only of the Samothracian mystery, and allegorised it. They
adapted it to their astronomical and anthropological, or rather phallic,
notions. Samothrace is known historically to have been famous in
antiquity for a deluge, which submerged the country and reached the top of the
highest mountains; an event which happened before the age of the Argonauts. It
was overflowed very
* Vide § "Adam-Adami," in Part II. of this volume.
suddenly by the waters of the Euxine, regarded up to that time as a lake.* But the Israelites had, moreover, another legend upon which to base their allegory: the "deluge," that transformed the present Gobi Desert into a sea for the last time, some 10 or 12,000 years ago, and which drove many Noahs and their families on to the surrounding mountains. As the Babylonian accounts are now only restored from hundreds of thousands of broken fragments (the mound of Kouyunjik alone having yielded to Layard's excavations over twenty thousand fragments of inscriptions), the proofs here cited are comparatively scanty; yet such as they are, they corroborate almost every one of our teachings, certainly three, at least. These are:
(1.) That the race which was the first to fall into generation was a dark Race (Zalmat Gaguadi), which they call the Adami or dark Race, and that Sarku, or the light Race, remained pure for a long while subsequently.
(2.) That the Babylonians recognised two principal Races at the time of the Fall, the Race of the Gods (the Ethereal doubles of the Pitris), having preceded these two. This is Sir H. Rawlinson's opinion. These "Races" are our second and third Root-races.
(3) That these seven Gods, each of whom created a man, or group of men, were "the gods imprisoned or incarnated." These gods were: the god Zi; the god Ziku (noble life, Director of purity); the god Mirku (noble crown) "Saviour from death of the gods" (later on) imprisoned, and the creator of "the dark Race which his hand has made;" the god Libzu "wise among the gods"; the god Nissi . . . . and the god Suhhab; and Hea or Sa, their synthesis, the god of wisdom and of the Deep, identified with Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the fall, and called (collectively) the Demiurge, or Creator. (See Chaldean Account Genesis, p. 82.)
There are two "Creations" so called, in the Babylonian fragments, and
Genesis having adhered to this, one finds its first two chapters
distinguished as the Elohite and the Jehovite creations. Their proper order,
however, is not preserved in these or in any other exoteric accounts. Now these
"Creations," according to the occult teachings, refer respectively to the
formation of the primordial seven men by the progenitors (the Pitris,
or Elohim): and to that of the human groups after the fall.
* See Pliny, 4, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, 7, c. 108; Pausanias, 7, c. 4,
etc.
All this will be examined in the light of science and comparisons drawn from the scriptures of all the ancient nations, the Bible included, as we proceed. Meanwhile, before we turn to the Anthropogenesis of the prehistoric Races, it may be useful to agree upon the names to be given to the Continents on which the four great Races, which preceded our Adamic Race, were born, lived, and died. Their archaic and esoteric names were many, and varied with the language of the nationality which mentioned them in its annals and scriptures. That which in the Vendidad, for instance, is referred to as Airyanem Vaκgo (see Bund. 79, 12) wherein was born the original Zoroaster,* is called in the Purβnic literature "Sveta-Dwξpa," "Mount Meru," the abode of Vishnu, etc., etc.; and in the Secret Doctrine is simply named the land of the "Gods" under their chiefs the "Spirits of this Planet."
Therefore, in view of the possible, and even very probable confusion, that may arise, it is considered more convenient to adopt, for each of the four Continents constantly referred to, a name more familiar to the cultured reader. It is proposed, then, to call the first continent, or rather the first terra firma on which the first Race was evolved by the divine progenitors:
I. "The Imperishable Sacred Land."
The reasons for this name are explained as follows: This "Sacred Land"
of
which more later on is stated never to have shared the fate of the other
continents; because it is the only one whose destiny it is to last from the
beginning to the end of the Manvantara throughout each Round. It is the cradle
of the first man and the dwelling of the last divine mortal, chosen as
a Sishta for the future seed of humanity. Of this mysterious and sacred
land very little can be said, except, perhaps, according to a poetical
expression in one of the Commentaries, that the "pole-star has its watchful eye
upon it, from the dawn to the close of the twilight of 'a day' of the
GREAT
BREATH."
* By "original" we mean the "Amshaspend," called "Zarathustra, the lord and
ruler of the Vara made by Yima in that land." There were several Zarathustra or
Zertusts, the Dabistan alone enumerating thirteen; but these were all the
reincarnations of the first one. The last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire
temple of Azareksh and the writer of the works on the primeval sacred Magian
religion destroyed by Alexander.
In India called "The Day of Brahmβ."
II. The "HYPERBOREAN" will be the name chosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest Greeks to the far-off and mysterious region, whither their tradition made Apollo the "Hyperborean" travel every year. Astronomically, Apollo is of course the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic sanctuaries, loved to visit annually his far-away country, where the Sun was said never to set for one half of the year. Eggu;" ga;r nukto" te kai h~mato" eisi keleuQoi, says a verse in the Odyssey (x. 86).
But historically, or better, perhaps, ethnologically and geologically, the meaning is different. The land of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain of Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal country, as surmised by the mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia and the Danube.* It was a real Continent, a bona-fide land which knew no winter in those early days, nor have its sorry remains more than one night and day during the year, even now. The nocturnal shadows never fall upon it, said the Greeks; for it is the land of the Gods, the favourite abode of Apollo, the god of light, and its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This may be regarded as poetised fiction now; but it was poetised truth then.
III. The third Continent, we propose to call "Lemuria." The name is an
invention, or an idea, of Mr. P. L. Sclater, who asserted, between 1850 and
1860, on zoological grounds the actual existence, in prehistoric times, of a
Continent which he showed to have extended from Madagascar to Ceylon and
Sumatra. It included some portions of what is now Africa; but otherwise this
gigantic Continent, which stretched from the Indian ocean to Australia, has now
wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific, leaving here and there
only some of its highland tops which are now islands. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the
naturalist, "extends the Australia of tertiary periods to New Guinea and the
Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji;" and from its Marsupial types he infers "a
connection with the Northern Continent during the
* See Volcker, "Mythological Geography," pp. 145 to 170.
Secondary period," writes Mr. C. Gould in "Mythical Monsters," p. 47. The subject is treated at length elsewhere.*
IV. "Atlantis" is the Fourth Continent. It would be the first historical land, were the traditions of the ancients to receive more attention than they have hitherto. The famous island of Plato of that name was but a fragment of this great Continent. (See "Esoteric Buddhism.")
V. The Fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at the Antipodes,
it is Europe and Asia Minor, almost coeval with it, which are generally referred
to by the Indo-Aryan Occultists as the fifth. If their teaching followed the
appearance of the Continents in their geological and geographical order, then
this classification would have to be altered. But as the sequence of the
Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the Races, from the first
to the fifth, our Aryan Root-race, Europe must be called the fifth great
Continent. The Secret Doctrine takes no account of islands and peninsulas, nor
does it follow the modern geographical distribution of land and sea. Since the
day of its earliest teachings and the destruction of the great Atlantis, the
face of the earth has changed more than once. There was a time when the delta of
Egypt and Northern Africa belonged to Europe, before the formation of the
Straits of Gibraltar, and a further upheaval of the continent, changed entirely
the face of the map of Europe. The last serious change occurred some 12,000
years ago,
* It is
to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept Mr. Sclater's
idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes a land or continent
formerly uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India (but not Australia and
India); and Mr. A. R. Wallace shows, in his "Geographical Distribution of Animals"
and "Island Life," that the hypothesis of such a land is quite
uncalled for on the alleged zoological grounds. But he admits that a much closer
proximity of India and Australia did certainly exist, and at a time so very
remote that it was "certainly pre-tertiary," and he adds in a private letter
that "no name has been given to this supposed land." Yet the land did exist, and
was of course pre-tertiary, for "Lemuria" (accepting this name for the
third Continent) had perished before Atlantis had fully developed; and the
latter sunk and its chief portions had disappeared before the end of the Miocene
period.
One more "coincidence"
"Now it is proved that in geologically recent times, this region of North
Africa was in fact a peninsula of Spain, and that its union with
Africa (proper) was effected on the North by the rupture of Gibraltar, and on
the South by an upheaval to which the Sahara owes its existence.
The shores of this former sea of Sahara are still marked by the shells of the same Gastropoda that live on
the shores of the Mediterranean." (Prof. Oscar Schmidt, "Doctrine of Descent
and Darwinism," p. 244.)
9 PRE-TERTIARY GIANTS.
and was followed by the submersion of Plato's little Atlantic island, which he calls Atlantis after its parent continent. Geography was part of the mysteries, in days of old. Says the Zohar (iii., fol. 10a): "These secrets (of land and sea) were divulged to the men of the secret science, but not to the geographers."
The claim that physical man was originally a colossal pre-tertiary giant, and that he existed 18,000,000 years ago, must of course appear preposterous to admirers of, and believers in, modern learning. The whole posse comitatis of biologists will turn away from the conception of this third race Titan of the Secondary age, a being fit to fight as successfully with the then gigantic monsters of the air, sea, and land, as his forefathers the ethereal prototype of the Atlantean had little need to fear that which could not hurt him. The modern anthropologist is quite welcome to laugh at our Titans, as he laughs at the Biblical Adam, and as the theologian laughs at his pithecoid ancestor. The Occultists and their severe critics may feel that they have pretty well mutually squared their accounts by this time. Occult sciences claim less and give more, at all events, than either Darwinian Anthropology or Biblical Theology.
Nor ought the Esoteric Chronology to frighten any one; for, with regard to figures, the greatest authorities of the day are as fickle and as uncertain as the Mediterranean wave. As regards the duration of the geological periods alone, the learned men of the Royal Society are all hopelessly at sea, and jump from one million to five hundred millions of years with the utmost ease, as will be seen more than once during this comparison.
Take one instance for our present purpose the calculations of Mr. Croll.
Whether, according to this authority, 2,500,000 years represent the time since
the beginning of the tertiary age, or the Eocene period, as an American
geologist makes him say;* or whether again Mr. Croll "allows fifteen millions
since the beginning of the Eocene period," as quoted by an English geologist,
both sets of figures cover the claims
* A. Winchell, Professor of Geology, "World-Life,"
p. 369.
Mr. Charles Gould, late Geological surveyor of Tasmania, in "Mythical
Monsters," p. 84.
made by the Secret Doctrine.* For assigning as the latter does from four to five million years between the incipient and the final evolution of the Fourth Root-Race, on the Lemuro-Atlantean Continents; one million years for the Fifth, or Aryan Race, to the present date; and about 850,000 since the submersion of the last large peninsula of the great Atlantis all this may have easily taken place within the 15,000,000 years conceded by Mr. Croll to the Tertiary Age. But, chronologically speaking, the duration of the period is of secondary importance, as we have, after all, certain American scientists to fall back upon. These gentlemen, unmoved by the fact that their assertions are called not only dubious but absurd, yet maintain that man existed so far back as in the Secondary Age. They have found human footprints on rocks of that formation; and furthermore, M. de Quatrefages finds no valid scientific reason why man should not have existed during the Secondary Age.
The "Ages" and periods in geology are, in sober truth, purely conventional
terms, as they are still hardly delineated, and, moreover,
* Sir Charles Lyell, who is credited with having "happily invented
the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene," to mark the three divisions of the
Tertiary age, ought really to have settled upon some approximate age for his
"Mind-offspring." Having left the duration of these periods, however, to the
speculations of specialists, the greatest confusion and perplexity are the
result of that happy thought. It seems like a hopeless task to quote one set of
figures from one work, without the risk of finding it contradicted by the same
Author in an earlier or a subsequent volume. Sir W. Thomson, one of the most
eminent among the modern authorities, has changed, about half-a-dozen times, his
opinion upon the age of the Sun and the date of the consolidation of the Earth's
crust. In Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philosophy," one finds
only ten million years allowed, since the time when the temperature of the Earth
permitted vegetable life to appear on it; (App. D et seq. also Trans. Roy.
Soc. Edin. xxiii, Pt. 1, 157, 1862, where 847 is cancelled). Mr.
Darwin gives Sir W. Thomson's estimate as "a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 200
millions of years since the consolidation of the crust" (See Ch. Gould). In the
same work (Nat. Phil.) 80 millions are given from the time of
incipient incrustation to the present state of the world. And in his last
lecture, as shown elsewhere, Sir W. Thomson declares (1887) that the Sun is not
older than 15 millions of years! Meanwhile, basing his arguments as to
the limits to the age of the Sun's heat, on figures previously established by
Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Croll allows 60 millions of years since the
beginning of the Cambrian period. This is hopeful for the lovers of exact
knowledge. Thus, whatever figures are given by Occult Science, they are
sure to be corroborated by those of some one among the modern men of Science who
are considered as authorities.
11 THE TROPICS AT THE POLE.
no two geologists or naturalists agree as to the figures. Thus, there is a wide margin for choice offered to the Occultist by the learned fraternity. Shall we take for one of our supports Mr. T. Mellard Reade? This gentleman, in a paper on "Limestone as an Index of Geological Time," read by him in 1878 before the Royal Society, claims that the minimum time required for the formation of the sedimentary strata and the elimination of the calcareous matter is in round numbers 600 million years (See "Proceedings of Royal Society," London, Vol. XXVIII., p. 281); or shall we ask support for our chronology from Mr. Darwin's works, wherein he demands for the organic transformations according to his theory from 300 to 500 million years? Sir C. Lyell and Prof. Houghton were satisfied with placing the beginning of the Cambrian Age at 200 and 240 millions of years back respectively. Geologists and zoologists claim the maximum time, though Mr. Huxley, at one time, placed the beginning of the incrustation of the earth 1,000 million years ago, and would not surrender a millennium of it.
But the main point for us lies not in the agreement or disagreement of the Naturalists as to the duration of geological periods, but rather in their perfect accord on one point, for a wonder, and this a very important one. They all agree that during "The Miocene Age" whether one or ten million years ago Greenland and even Spitzbergen, the remnants of our Second or Hyperborean Continent, "had almost a tropical climate." Now the pre-Homeric Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition of this "Land of the Eternal Sun," whither their Apollo journeyed yearly. "During the Miocene Age, Greenland (in N. Lat. 708) developed an abundance of trees, such as the Yew, the Redwood, the Sequoia, allied to the Californian species, Beeches, Planes, Willows, Oaks, Poplars and Walnuts, as well as a Magnolia and a Zamia," says Science; in short Greenland had Southern plants unknown to Northern regions.
And now this natural question rises. If the Greeks knew, in the days of
Homer, of a Hyperborean land, i.e., a blessed land beyond the reach of
Boreas, the god of winter and of the hurricane, an ideal region which the later
Greeks and their classics have vainly tried to locate by searching for it beyond
Scythia, a country where nights were short and days long, and beyond that land a
country where the sun never set and the palm grew freely
if they knew of all
this, who then told them of it? In
their day, and for ages previously, Greenland must certainly have been already covered with perpetual snows, with never-thawing ice, just as it is now. Everything tends to show that the land of the short nights and the long days was Norway or Scandinavia, beyond which was the blessed land of eternal light and summer; and to know of this, their tradition must have descended to the Greeks from some people more ancient than themselves, who were acquainted with those climatic details of which the Greeks themselves could know nothing. Even in our day, science suspects beyond the Polar seas, at the very circle of the Arctic Pole, the existence of a sea which never freezes and a continent which is ever green. The archaic teachings, and likewise the Purβnas for one who understands the allegories of the latter contain the same statements. Suffice, then, to us the strong probability that a people, now unknown to history, lived during the Miocene period of modern science, at a time when Greenland was an almost tropical land.
NOTE. The reader is requested to bear in mind that the first and the following sections are not strictly consecutive in order of time. In the first Section the Stanzas which form the skeleton of the exposition are given, and certain important points commented upon and explained. In the subsequent sections various additional details are gathered, and a fuller explanation of the subject is attempted.
In primeval times, a maiden,
Beauteous Daughter of the Ether,
Passed for ages her existence
In the great expanse of Heaven,
. . . . . . . . . . .
In primeval times, a maiden,
Beauteous Daughter of the Ether,
Passed for ages her existence
In the great expanse of Heaven,
. . . . . . . . . . .
Seven hundred years she wandered,
Seven hundred years she laboured,
Ere her first-born was delivered.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Ere a beauteous duck descending,
Hastens toward the water-mother.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Lightly on the knee she settles,
Finds a nesting-place befitting,
Where to lay her eggs in safety,
Lays her eggs within, at pleasure,
Six, the golden eggs she lays them,
Then a Seventh, an egg of iron . . . . ."
(Kalevala, Rune I.)
15 STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN
(VERBATIM EXTRACTS.*)
1. THE LHA WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH IS SUBSERVIENT TO THE LHA OF THE SEVEN, THEY WHO REVOLVE DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE. HIS BREATH GAVE LIFE TO THE SEVEN; IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST.
2. SAID THE EARTH:"LORD OF THE SHINING FACE; MY HOUSE IS EMPTY . . . . SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL. THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD OF WISDOM. SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF, SEVEN TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE. THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RINGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS PASSAGE. SEND NOW TO THY SERVANT THE SAME."
3. SAID THE "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE":"I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS; APPLY TO THY FATHER, THE LORD OF THE LOTUS, FOR HIS SONS . . . . THY PEOPLE SHALL BE UNDER THE RULE OF THE FATHERS. THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE MEN OF THE LORD OF WISDOM, NOT THE LUNAR SONS, ARE IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS. THY SEVEN SKINS ARE YET ON THEE . . . . THOU ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY."
4. AFTER GREAT THROES SHE CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE.
5. THE WHEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES MORE.
IT
CONSTRUCTED RUPAS: SOFT STONES THAT HARDENED; HARD PLANTS THAT SOFTENED.
VISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL LIVES.
SHE
SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK WHENEVER THEY OVERRAN THE MOTHER.
* Only forty-nine Slokas out of several hundred are here given. Not every
verse is translated verbatim. A periphrasis is sometimes used for the sake of
clearness and intelligibility, where a literal translation would be quite
unintelligible.
16 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
. . . . AFTER THIRTY CRORES SHE TURNED ROUND. SHE LAY ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE . . . SHE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE WOULD ASK NO SONS OF WISDOM. SHE CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED WATER-MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD.
6. THE WATER-MEN TERRIBLE AND BAD SHE HERSELF CREATED FROM THE REMAINS OF OTHERS, FROM THE DROSS AND SLIME OF HER FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD, SHE FORMED THEM. THE DHYANI CAME AND LOOKEDTHE DHYANI FROM THE BRIGHT FATHER-MOTHER, FROM THE WHITE REGIONS THEY CAME, FROM THE ABODES OF THE IMMORTAL MORTALS.
7. DISPLEASED THEY WERE. OUR FLESH IS NOT THERE. NO FIT RUPAS FOR OUR BROTHERS OF THE FIFTH. NO DWELLINGS FOR THE LIVES. PURE WATERS, NOT TURBID, THEY MUST DRINK. LET US DRY THEM.
8. THE FLAMES CAME. THE FIRES WITH THE SPARKS; THE NIGHT FIRES AND THE DAY FIRES. THEY DRIED OUT THE TURBID DARK WATERS. WITH THEIR HEAT THEY QUENCHED THEM. THE LHAS OF THE HIGH, THE LHAMAYIN OF BELOW, CAME. THEY SLEW THE FORMS WHICH WERE TWO-AND FOUR-FACED. THEY FOUGHT THE GOAT-MEN, AND THE DOG-HEADED MEN, AND THE MEN WITH FISHES' BODIES.
9. MOTHER-WATER, THE GREAT SEA, WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON WHICH HAD LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH.
10. WHEN THEY WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER-EARTH REMAINED BARE. SHE ASKED TO BE DRIED.
11. THE LORD OF THE LORDS CAME. FROM HER BODY HE SEPARATED THE WATERS, AND THAT WAS HEAVEN ABOVE, THE FIRST HEAVEN.
12. THE GREAT CHOHANS CALLED THE LORDS OF THE MOON, OF THE AIRY BODIES. "BRING FORTH MEN, MEN OF YOUR NATURE. GIVE THEM THEIR FORMS WITHIN. SHE WILL BUILD COVERINGS WITHOUT. MALES-FEMALES WILL THEY BE. LORDS OF THE FLAME ALSO . . . "
13. THEY WENT EACH ON HIS ALLOTTED LAND: SEVEN OF THEM EACH ON HIS LOT. THE LORDS OF THE FLAME REMAIN BEHIND. THEY WOULD NOT GO, THEY WOULD NOT CREATE.
17
THE SLOKAS OF "DZYAN"
14. THE SEVEN HOSTS, THE "WILL-BORN LORDS," PROPELLED BY THE SPIRIT OF LIFE-GIVING, SEPARATE MEN FROM THEMSELVES, EACH ON HIS OWN ZONE.
15. SEVEN TIMES SEVEN SHADOWS OF FUTURE MEN WERE BORN, EACH OF HIS OWN COLOUR AND KIND. EACH INFERIOR TO HIS FATHER. THE FATHERS, THE BONELESS, COULD GIVE NO LIFE TO BEINGS WITH BONES. THEIR PROGENY WERE BHUTA, WITH NEITHER FORM NOR MIND. THEREFORE THEY ARE CALLED THE CHHAYA.
16. HOW ARE THE MANUSHYA BORN? THE MANUS WITH MINDS, HOW ARE THEY MADE? THE FATHERS CALLED TO THEIR HELP THEIR OWN FIRE; WHICH IS THE FIRE THAT BURNS IN EARTH. THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH CALLED TO HIS HELP THE SOLAR FIRE. THESE THREE PRODUCED IN THEIR JOINT EFFORTS A GOOD RUPA. IT COULD STAND, WALK, RUN, RECLINE, OR FLY. YET IT WAS STILL BUT A CHHAYA, A SHADOW WITH NO SENSE . . . .
17. THE BREATH NEEDED A FORM; THE FATHERS GAVE IT. THE BREATH NEEDED A GROSS BODY; THE EARTH MOULDED IT. THE BREATH NEEDED THE SPIRIT OF LIFE; THE SOLAR LHAS BREATHED IT INTO ITS FORM. THE BREATH NEEDED A MIRROR OF ITS BODY; "WE GAVE IT OUR OWN," SAID THE DHYANIS. THE BREATH NEEDED A VEHICLE OF DESIRES; "IT HAS IT," SAID THE DRAINER OF WATERS. BUT BREATH NEEDS A MIND TO EMBRACE THE UNIVERSE; "WE CANNOT GIVE THAT," SAID THE FATHERS. "I NEVER HAD IT," SAID THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH. "THE FORM WOULD BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE," SAID THE GREAT FIRE . . . . MAN REMAINED AN EMPTY SENSELESS BHUTA . . . . THUS HAVE THE BONELESS GIVEN LIFE TO THOSE WHO BECAME MEN WITH BONES IN THE THIRD.
18. THE FIRST WERE THE SONS OF YOGA. THEIR SONS THE CHILDREN OF THE YELLOW FATHER AND THE WHITE MOTHER.
19. THE
SECOND
RACE WAS
THE PRODUCT BY BUDDING AND
18 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
EXPANSION, THE A-SEXUAL FROM THE SEXLESS *THUS WAS, O LANOO, THE SECOND RACE PRODUCED.
20. THEIR FATHERS WERE THE SELF-BORN. THE SELF-BORN, THE CHHAYA FROM THE BRILLIANT BODIES OF THE LORDS, THE FATHERS, THE SONS OF TWILIGHT.
21. WHEN THE RACE BECAME OLD, THE OLD WATERS MIXED WITH THE FRESHER WATERS. WHEN ITS DROPS BECAME TURBID, THEY VANISHED AND DISAPPEARED IN THE NEW STREAM, IN THE HOT STREAM OF LIFE. THE OUTER OF THE FIRST BECAME THE INNER OF THE SECOND. THE OLD WING BECAME THE NEW SHADOW, AND THE SHADOW OF THE WING.
22. THEN THE SECOND EVOLVED THE EGG-BORN, THE THIRD. THE SWEAT GREW, ITS DROPS GREW, AND THE DROPS BECAME HARD AND ROUND. THE SUN WARMED IT; THE MOON COOLED AND SHAPED IT; THE WIND FED IT UNTIL ITS RIPENESS. THE WHITE SWAN FROM THE STARRY VAULT OVERSHADOWED THE BIG DROP. THE EGG OF THE FUTURE RACE, THE MAN-SWAN OF THE LATER THIRD. FIRST MALE-FEMALE, THEN MAN AND WOMAN.
23. THE SELF-BORN WERE THE CHHAYAS: THE SHADOWS FROM THE BODIES OF THE SONS OF TWILIGHT.
24. THE
SONS OF
WISDOM,
THE SONS OF
NIGHT, READY FOR REBIRTH, CAME
DOWN, THEY SAW THE VILE FORMS OF THE FIRST
THIRD,
"WE CAN CHOOSE,"
SAID THE
LORDS, "WE HAVE
WISDOM." SOME ENTERED THE
CHHAYA.
SOME
PROJECTED THE SPARK.
SOME DEFERRED TILL THE
FOURTH.
FROM THEIR OWN
RUPA
THEY FILLED THE KAMA.
THOSE WHO ENTERED BECAME
ARHATS.
THOSE WHO RECEIVED BUT A SPARK,
REMAINED DESTITUTE OF KNOWLEDGE; THE SPARK BURNED LOW.
THE
THIRD REMAINED MIND-LESS. THEIR
JIVAS WERE NOT
* The idea and spirit of the sentence is here given, as a verbal translation would
convey very little to the reader.
19 THE SLOKAS OF "DZYAN"
READY. THESE WERE SET APART AMONG THE SEVEN. THEY BECAME NARROW-HEADED. THE THIRD WERE READY. "IN THESE SHALL WE DWELL," SAID THE LORDS OF THE FLAME.
25. HOW DID THE MANΒSA, THE SONS OF WISDOM, ACT? THEY REJECTED THE SELF-BORN. THEY ARE NOT READY. THEY SPURNED THE SWEAT-BORN. THEY ARE NOT QUITE READY. THEY WOULD NOT ENTER THE FIRST EGG-BORN.
26. WHEN THE SWEAT-BORN PRODUCED THE EGG-BORN, THE TWOFOLD AND THE MIGHTY, THE POWERFUL WITH BONES, THE LORDS OF WISDOM SAID: "NOW SHALL WE CREATE."
27. THE THIRD RACE BECAME THE VAHAN OF THE LORDS OF WISDOM. IT CREATED "SONS OF WILL AND YOGA," BY KRIYASAKTI IT CREATED THEM, THE HOLY FATHERS, ANCESTORS OF THE ARHATS.
28. FROM THE DROPS OF SWEAT; FROM THE RESIDUE OF THE SUBSTANCE; MATTER FROM DEAD BODIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS OF THE WHEEL BEFORE; AND FROM CAST-OFF DUST, THE FIRST ANIMALS WERE PRODUCED.
29. ANIMALS WITH BONES, DRAGONS OF THE DEEP, AND FLYING SARPAS WERE ADDED TO THE CREEPING THINGS. THEY THAT CREEP ON THE GROUND GOT WINGS. THEY OF THE LONG NECKS IN THE WATER BECAME THE PROGENITORS OF THE FOWLS OF THE AIR.
30. DURING THE THIRD RACE THE BONELESS ANIMALS GREW AND CHANGED: THEY BECAME ANIMALS WITH BONES, THEIR CHHAYAS BECAME SOLID.
31. THE ANIMALS SEPARATED THE FIRST. THEY BEGAN TO BREED. THE TWO-FOLD MAN SEPARATED ALSO. HE SAID: "LET US AS THEY; LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES." THEY DID.
32. AND THOSE WHICH HAD NO SPARK TOOK HUGE SHE-ANIMALS UNTO
THEM. THEY BEGAT UPON THEM DUMB
RACES.
DUMB THEY WERE THEMSELVES. BUT THEIR TONGUES UNTIED.
THE TONGUES OF THEIR PROGENY REMAINED STILL.
MONSTERS
THEY BRED. A RACE OF CROOKED RED-HAIR-COVERED MONSTERS GOING ON
ALL FOURS. A DUMB RACE TO KEEP THE SHAME UNTOLD.
20 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
33. SEEING WHICH, THE LHAS WHO HAD NOT BUILT MEN, WEPT, SAYING:
34. "THE AMANΒSA HAVE DEFILED OUR FUTURE ABODES. THIS IS KARMA. LET US DWELL IN THE OTHERS. LET US TEACH THEM BETTER, LEST WORSE SHOULD HAPPEN. THEY DID . . .
35. THEN ALL MEN BECAME ENDOWED WITH MANAS. THEY SAW THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS.
36. THE FOURTH RACE DEVELOPED SPEECH.
37. THE ONE BECAME TWO; ALSO ALL THE LIVING AND CREEPING THINGS THAT WERE STILL ONE, GIANT FISH-BIRDS AND SERPENTS WITH SHELL-HEADS.
38. THUS TWO BY TWO ON THE SEVEN ZONES, THE THIRD RACE GAVE BIRTH TO THE FOURTH-RACE MEN; THE GODS BECAME NO-GODS; THE SURA BECAME A-SURA.
39. THE FIRST, ON EVERY ZONE, WAS MOON-COLOURED; THE SECOND YELLOW LIKE GOLD; THE THIRD RED; THE FOURTH BROWN, WHICH BECAME BLACK WITH SIN. THE FIRST SEVEN HUMAN SHOOTS WERE ALL OF ONE COMPLEXION. THE NEXT SEVEN BEGAN MIXING.
40. THEN THE FOURTH BECAME TALL WITH PRIDE. WE ARE THE KINGS, IT WAS SAID; WE ARE THE GODS.
41. THEY TOOK WIVES FAIR TO LOOK UPON. WIVES FROM THE MINDLESS, THE NARROW-HEADED. THEY BRED MONSTERS. WICKED DEMONS, MALE AND FEMALE, ALSO KHADO (DAKINI), WITH LITTLE MINDS.
42. THEY BUILT TEMPLES FOR THE HUMAN BODY. MALE AND FEMALE THEY WORSHIPPED. THEN THE THIRD EYE ACTED NO LONGER.
43. THEY BUILT HUGE CITIES.
OF RARE EARTHS
AND METALS THEY BUILT, AND OUT OF THE FIRES VOMITED, OUT OF THE WHITE STONE
21 THE SLOKAS OF "DZYAN"
OF THE MOUNTAINS AND OF THE BLACK STONE, THEY CUT THEIR OWN IMAGES IN THEIR SIZE AND LIKENESS, AND WORSHIPPED THEM.
44. THEY BUILT GREAT IMAGES NINE YATIS HIGH, THE SIZE OF THEIR BODIES. INNER FIRES HAD DESTROYED THE LAND OF THEIR FATHERS. THE WATER THREATENED THE FOURTH.
45. THE FIRST GREAT WATERS CAME. THEY SWALLOWED THE SEVEN GREAT ISLANDS.
46. ALL HOLY SAVED, THE UNHOLY DESTROYED. WITH THEM MOST OF THE HUGE ANIMALS, PRODUCED FROM THE SWEAT OF THE EARTH.
47. FEW MEN REMAINED: SOME YELLOW, SOME BROWN AND BLACK, AND SOME RED REMAINED. THE MOON-COLOURED WERE GONE FOREVER.
48. THE FIFTH PRODUCED FROM THE HOLY STOCK REMAINED; IT WAS RULED OVER BY THE FIRST DIVINE KINGS.
49. . . . .
WHO RE-DESCENDED, WHO MADE PEACE WITH THE FIFTH,
WHO TAUGHT AND INSTRUCTED IT. . . . . .
§§ (1)
THE
LHA, or Spirit of the Earth. (2)
Invocation of the Earth to the Sun.
(3) What the Sun
answers.
(4) Transformation of the Earth.
1. THE LHA (a) WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH (Globe, or our Earth) IS SERVANT TO THE LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN (the planetary Spirits) (b), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE (Loka-Chakshub) OF OUR WORLD. HIS BREATH GIVES LIFE TO THE SEVEN (gives light to the planets). IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST (c). "THEY ARE ALL DRAGONS OF WISDOM," adds the Commentary (d).
(a) Lha is the ancient word in trans-Himalayan regions for "Spirit," any celestial or superhuman Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies, from Archangel, or Dhyani, down to an angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit.
(b) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian
of our globe, which is the fourth in the chain, is subordinate to the chief
Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained,
the ancients had, in their Kyriel of gods, seven chief Mystery-gods, whose chief
was, exoterically, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and,
esoterically, the second Logos, the Demiurge. The seven (who have
now become the "Seven Eyes of the Lord" in the Christian religion) were the
regents of the seven chief planets; but these were not
* All the words and sentences placed in brackets in the Stanzas and
Commentaries are the writer's. In some places they may be incomplete and even
inadequate from the Hindu standpoint; but in the meaning attached to them in
Trans-Himalayan Esotericism they are correct. In every case the writer takes any
blame upon herself. Having never claimed personal infallibility, that which is
given on her own authority may leave much to be desired, in the very abstruse
cases where too deep metaphysics is involved. The teaching is offered as it is
understood; and as there are seven keys of interpretation to every symbol and
allegory, that which may not fit a meaning, say from the psychological or
astronomical aspect, will be found quite correct from the physical or
metaphysical.
reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the sun, the moon, nor the earth. The sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve great gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos (the subject anointed by the Great BREATH, or the ONE) surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven "Mystery-gods" of the planets.
"The seven higher make the Seven Lhas create the world," states a Commentary; which means that our Earth, leaving aside the rest, was created or fashioned by terrestrial spirits, the "Regents" being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ, the seed of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher ones were the Kosmocratores, the fabricators of our solar system. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies: that of Hermes, of the Chaldees, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. Heaven's belt, the signs of the Zodiac (the Sacred animals), are as much the Bne' Alhim (Sons of the Gods or the Elohim) as the Spirits of the Earth; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar gods or goddesses, called the fathers and mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their "Fathers" and "Mothers" the latter interchangeable and varying with each nation the gods and their planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn Bel, Brihaspati, etc.
(c) "His breath gave life to the seven," refers as much to the sun, who gives life to the Planets, as to the "High One," the Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas.
In the apocalyptic Slokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the Purβnas. Without the help of the later commentaries, compiled by generations of adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the invisible Logos, with its seven hierarchies (represented or personified each by its chief angel or rector), form one POWER, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter "Hierarchy" being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the invisible and (except in the lowest grades) ever-subjective angels.
Thus to anticipate a little by way of illustration
every Race in its
evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets: Race the first receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the third humanity those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female are said to be under the direct influence of Venus, "the little sun in which the solar orb stores his light."
The summation of the Stanzas in Book I. showed the genesis * of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and absolute UNITY. In its primary manifested aspect we have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, Primordial Substance and Force (centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc., etc.); (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the LOGOS.
This LOGOS is the apex of the Pythagorean triangle. When the triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktis, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple RAY in the unmanifested, or its noumenon.
Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates,
is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the
commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahm manifests as Mulaprakriti and then
as the Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the "Unconscious Universal Mind,"
etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the SUBJECT-side of
manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual
consciousness. Mulaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of
the OBJECT-side of things the basis of all objective evolution and
Cosmogenesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmic Latency. It is the transformation into energy of the
supra-conscious thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the
objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence
spring the wondrous laws of matter: hence the "primal impress" so vainly
discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is not synchronous with the first
objectivation of Mulaprakriti. But as, apart from it, the latter is
absolutely and necessarily inert a mere abstraction
it is
unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of
succession of
* According to Dr. A. Wilder's learned definition,
Genesis,
genesi"
is not generation, but "a coming out of the eternal into the Kosmos and
Time": "a coming from esse into exsistere," or "from
BE-NESS into 'being' " as a Theosophist would say.
the Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds Mulaprakriti; but, minus Force, Mulaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.*
The "Heavenly Man" (Tetragrammaton) who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the firstborn from the passive deity and the first manifestation of that deity's shadow, is the universal form and idea, which engenders the manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four-lettered symbol, in the Kabala, of the Universe itself, also called the second Logos. The second springs from the first and develops the third triangle (see the Sephirothal Tree); from the last of which (the lower host of Angels) MEN are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present.
The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the LOGOS and the Demiurgos, for one is Spirit and the other is Soul; or as Dr. Wilder has it: "Dianoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in affinity with To a~gaqon, one being the superior apprehending, the other the comprehending one noetic and the other phrenic."
Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the third Logos.
The esoteric meaning of the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum)
is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the
concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and
the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse
of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of
Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his
Universe, the Earth. It is the three Heads of the Kabala: "Unum intra
alterum, et alterum super alterum" (Zohar, Idra Suta, sec.
VII). "Every Universe (world or planet) has its own Logos," says the
doctrine. The Sun was always called by the Egyptians "the eye of Osiris," and
was himself the Logos, the first-begotten, or light made manifest to
the world, "which is the Mind and divine intellect of the Concealed." It is only
by the sevenfold Ray of this light that we can become cognizant of the Logos
through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the creator of our
planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of
that "Creator" good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the
origin of evil. This "Creator" is neither good nor bad per se, but its
differentiated aspects in nature make it assume one or the other character. With
the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through space, none of the
sun-gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the "Books of
Hermes," and in every ancient folk lore. It is symbolised generally by the
Dragon and the Serpent the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil,
represented on Earth by
* For a clearer explanation of the origins, as contained in the esotericism
of the Bhagavad Gita, see the Notes thereon published in the "Theosophist"
for February, March and June, 1887, Madras.
the right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the Kalewala,* the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the "spittle of Suoyatar . . . . and endowed with a living Soul by the Principle of Evil," Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the "thing of Evil" (the Serpent or Sorcerer), and Ahti, the Dragon; "Magic Lemminkainen." The latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin "daughter of the air," she "who fell from heaven into the sea," before Creation, i.e., Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult thought in these few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M. Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen, the good magician,
"Hews the wall with might of magic,
Breaks the palisade in pieces,
Hews to atoms seven pickets,
Chops the Serpent wall to fragments.
. . . . . .
When the monster little heeding,
. . . . . .
Pounces with his mouth of venom
At the head of Lemminkainen.
But the hero, quick recalling,
Speaks the Master words of Knowledge,
Words that came from distant ages,
&n