The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1Theosophy / New ThoughtMystical / EsotericEnglishShareThe Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 501893 edition - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 available1893 editionLanguageEnglishEspañol‹The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 1The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 2The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 3The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 4The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 5The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 6The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 7The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 8The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 9The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 10The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 11The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 12The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 13The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 14The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 15The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 16The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 17The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 18The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 19The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 20The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 21The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 22The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 23The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 24The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 25The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 26The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 27The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 28The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 29The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 30The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 31The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 32The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 33The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 34The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 35The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 36The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 37The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 38The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 39The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 40The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 41The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 42The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 43The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 44The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 45The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 46The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 47The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 48The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 49The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 50The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 51The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 52The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 53The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 54The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 55The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 56The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 57The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 58The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 59The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 60The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 61The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 62The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 63The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 64The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 65The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 66The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 67The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 68The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 69The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 70The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 71The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 72›Stanza Vi.—Continued.The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 50ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter15. AT THE FOURTH(297) (a), THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES. TWO(298) OBEY. 2THE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED (b); THEY WILL BE BORN IN THE FOURTH,(299) SUFFER AND CAUSE SUFFERING. THIS IS THE FIRST WAR (c). 3The full meaning of this Shloka can only be fully comprehended after reading the additional detailed explanations, in the Anthropogenesis and its Commentaries, in Volume II. Between this Shloka and Shloka 4, extend long ages; and there now gleams the dawn and sunrise of another æon. The drama enacted on our planet is at the beginning of its fourth act; but for a clearer comprehension of the whole play the reader will have to turn back before he can proceed onward. For this verse belongs to the general Cosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Volume II will give a detailed account of the “creation,” or rather formation, of the first human beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third; or, as they are called, the First, Second, and the Third Root‐Races. As the solid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic phantom, so did man. 4(a) That which is meant by the qualification the “Fourth,” is explained as the Fourth Round, only on the authority of the Commentaries. It can equally mean Fourth Eternity as Fourth Round, or even our Fourth Globe. For, as will repeatedly be shown, the latter is the fourth sphere, on the fourth or lowest plane of material life. And it so happens that we are in the Fourth Round, at the middle point of which the perfect equilibrium between Spirit and Matter had to take place. 5It was, as we shall see, at this period—during the highest point of civilization and knowledge, and also of human intellectuality, of the Fourth, Atlantean Race—that, owing to the final crisis of the physiologico‐spiritual adjustment of the races, humanity branched off into two diametrically opposite paths: the Right‐ and the Left‐hand Paths of Knowledge or Vidyâ. In the words of the Commentary: 6Thus were the germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds lay latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the Fifth [our Race]. 7Says the Commentary explaining the Shloka: 8The Holy Youths [the Gods] refused to multiply and create species after their likeness, after their kind. “They are not fit Forms [Rûpas] for us. They have to grow.” They refuse to enter the Chhâyâs [Shadows or Images] of their inferiors. Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the beginning, even among the Gods, and they fell under the eye of the Karmic Lipikas. 9They had to suffer for it in later births. How the punishment reached the Gods will be seen in Volume II. 10It is a universal tradition that, before the physiological “Fall,” propagation of one’s kind, whether human or animal, took place through the Will of the Creators, or of their progeny. This was the Fall of Spirit into generation, not the Fall of mortal Man. It has already been stated that, to become self‐conscious, Spirit must pass through every cycle of being, culminating in its highest point on earth in Man. Spirit per se is an unconscious negative abstraction. Its purity is inherent, not acquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to become the highest Dhyân Chohan, it is necessary for each Ego to attain to full self‐consciousness as a human, i.e., conscious, being, which is synthesized for us in Man. The Jewish Kabalists, arguing that no Spirit can belong to the divine Hierarchy unless Ruach (Spirit) is united to Nephesh (Living Soul), only repeat the Eastern Esoteric teaching: 11A Dhyâni has to be an Âtmâ‐Buddhi; once the Buddhi‐Manas breaks loose from the immortal Âtmâ, of which it (Buddhi) is the vehicle, Âtman passes into Non‐Being, which is Absolute Being. 12This means that the purely Nirvânic state is a passage of Spirit back to the ideal abstraction of Be‐ness, which has no relation to the plane on which our Universe is accomplishing its cycle. 13(b) “The Curse is pronounced” does not mean, in this instance, that any Personal Being, God, or Superior Spirit, pronounced it, but simply that the cause, which could but create bad results, had been generated; and that the effects of this Karmic cause could lead the Beings that counteracted the laws of Nature, and thus impeded her legitimate progress, only to bad incarnations, hence to suffering. 14(c) “There were many Wars,” all referring to struggles of adjustment, spiritual, cosmical and astronomical, but chiefly to the mystery of the evolution of man, as he is now. The Powers or pure Essences that were “told to create,” relate to a mystery explained, as already said, elsewhere. It is not only one of the most hidden secrets of Nature—that of generation, over whose solution the Embryologists have vainly put their heads together—but likewise a divine function which involves that great religious, or rather dogmatic, mystery, the so‐called “Fall” of the Angels. Satan and his rebellious host, when the meaning of the allegory is explained, will thus prove to have refused to create physical man, only to become the direct Saviours and Creators of divine Man. The symbolical teaching is more than mystical and religious, it is purely scientific, as will be seen later on. For, instead of remaining a mere blind functioning medium, impelled and guided by fathomless Law, the “rebellious” Angel claimed and enforced his right of independent judgment and will, his right of free‐agency and responsibility, since Man and Angel are alike under Karmic Law. 15Explaining Kabalistic views, the author of New Aspects of Life says of the Fallen Angels that: 16According to the symbolical teaching, Spirit, from being simply a functionary agent of God, became volitional in its developed and developing action; and, substituting its own will for the divine desire in its regard, so fell. Hence the kingdom and reign of spirits and spiritual action, which flow from and are the product of spirit‐volition, are outside, and contrasted with, and in contradiction to, the kingdom of souls and divine action.(300) 17So far, so good; but what does the author mean by saying: 18When man was created, he was human in constitution, with human affections, human hopes and aspirations. From this state he fell—into the brute and savage. 19This is diametrically opposite to our Eastern teaching, and even to the Kabalistic notion, so far as we understand it, and to the Bible itself. This looks like Corporealism and Substantialism colouring Positive Philosophy, though it is rather difficult to feel quite sure of the author’s meaning. A fall, however, “from the natural into the supernatural and the animal”—supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in this case—implies what we suggest. 20The New Testament speaks of one of these “Wars,” as follows: 21And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.(301) 22The Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the Codex Nazaræus, the scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the Baptist, and the Initiates of Christos. Bahak Zivo, the “Father of the Genii,” is ordered to construct creatures—to “create.” But, as he is “ignorant of Orcus,” he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still purer spirit, to his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of the failure of the “Fathers,” the Lords of Light, who fail one after the other.(302) 23We will now quote from our earlier volumes:(303) 24Then steps on the stage of creation the Spirit(304) (of the Earth so‐called, or the Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls “devilish”), the lower portion of the Anima Mundi or Astral Light. [See the close of this Shloka.] With the Nazarenes and the Gnostics this Spirit was feminine. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, perceiving that for Fetahil,(305) the newest man (the latest), the splendour was “changed,” and that for splendour existed “decrease and damage,” she awakes Karabtanos,(306) “who was frantic and without sense and judgment,” and says to him: “Arise, see, the Splendour (Light) of the Newest Man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or create men), the decrease of this Splendour is visible. Rise up, come with thy Mother (the Spiritus) and free thee from limits by which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole world.” After which, follows the union of the frantic and blind matter, guided by the insinuations of the Spirit (not the Divine Breath but the Astral Spirit, which by its double essence is already tainted with matter); and the offer of the Mother being accepted, the Spiritus conceives “Seven Figures,” and the Seven Stellars (Planets), which represent also the seven capital sins, the progeny of an Astral Soul, separated from its divine source (spirit), and matter, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and says: “Let the earth exist, just as the abode of the Powers has existed.” Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he creates our planet. 25Then the Codex proceeds to tell how Bahak Zivo was separated from the Spiritus, and the Genii or Angels from the Rebels.(307) Then (the greatest) Mano,(308) who dwells with the greatest Ferho, calls Kebar Zivo (known also by the name of Nebat Iavar bar Iufin Ifafin), the Helm and Vine of the Food of Life(309)—he being the third Life, and commiserating the rebellious and foolish Genii, on account of the magnitude of their ambition, says: “Lord of the Genii(310) (Æons), see what the Genii (the Rebellious Angels) do, and about what they are consulting.(311) They say: ‘Let us call forth the world, and let us call the “Powers” into existence. The Genii are the Princes (Principes), the Sons of Light, but Thou art the Messenger of Life’.” 26And in order to counteract the influence of the seven “badly disposed” principles the progeny of Spiritus, Kebar Zivo (or Cabar Zio), the mighty Lord of Splendour, produces seven other lives (the cardinal virtues), who shine in their own form and light “from on high,”(312) and thus reëstablish the balance between good and evil, light and darkness. 27Here one finds a repetition of the early allegorical dual systems, such as the Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic religions of the future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree in ecclesiastical Christianity. It is already the outline of the two “Supremes”—God and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists. 28Most of the Western Christian Kabalists—preëminently Éliphas Lévi—in their desire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church Dogmas, did their best to make of the “Astral Light” only and preeminently the Plerôma of the early Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts of the Fallen Angels, of the Archôns and Powers. But the Astral Light, though only the lower aspect of the Absolute, is still dual. It is the Anima Mundi, and ought never to be viewed otherwise, except for Kabalistic purposes. The difference which exists between its “Light” and its “Living Fire,” ought ever to be present in the mind of the Seer and the Psychic. The higher aspect of this “Light,” without which only creatures of matter can be produced, is this Living Fire, and its Seventh Principle. It is stated in Isis Unveiled, in a complete description of it: 29The Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and bi‐sexual. The (ideal) male part of it is purely divine and spiritual, it is Wisdom, it is Spirit or Purusha; while the female portion (the Spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, is indeed matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life‐principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic perisprit, to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living. Animals have only the latent germ of the highest immortal soul in them. This latter will develop only after a series of countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolutions is contained in the Kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; a beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.(313)” 30The seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained when Isis Unveiled was written, but only the three Kabalistic Faces of the semi‐exoteric Kabalah.(314) But these contain the description of the mystic natures of the first Group of Dhyân Chohans in the regimen ignis, the region and “rule (or government) of fire,” divided into three classes, synthesized by the first, which makes four or the “Tetraktys.” If one studies the commentaries attentively, he will find the same progression in the angelic natures, viz., from the passive down to the active; the last of these Beings are as near to the Ahamkâra Element—the region or plane wherein Egoship, or the feeling of I‐am‐ness, is beginning to be defined—as the first are near to the undifferentiated Essence. The former are Arûpa, incorporeal; the latter, Rûpa, corporeal. 31In Volume II of the same work,(315) the philosophical systems of the Gnostics and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, are fully considered. They show the views held in those days, outside the circle of Mosaic Jews, about Jehovah. He was identified by all the Gnostics with the evil, rather than with the good principle. For them, he was Ilda‐Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” whose mother, Sophia Achamôth, was the daughter of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom—the female Holy Ghost of the early Christians—Âkâsha; Sophia Achamôth personifying the Lower Astral Light or Ether. The Astral Light stands in the same relation to Âkâsha and Anima Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing seen from two aspects, the spiritual and the psychic—the super‐ethereal, or connecting link between matter and pure spirit—and the physical.(316) Ilda‐Baoth—a compound name, made up of Ilda (ילד), child, and Baoth; the latter from בהוצ an egg, and בהות, chaos, emptiness, void, or desolation; or the Child born in the Egg of Chaos, like Brahmâ—or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the Seven Creative Spirits, and one of the lower Sephiroth. Ilda‐Baoth produces from himself seven other Gods, “Stellar Spirits,” or the Lunar Ancestors,(317) for they are all the same.(318) They are all in his own image, the “Spirits of the Face,” and the reflections one of the other, who become darker and more material, as they successively recede from their originator. 32They also inhabit seven regions disposed like a stair, for its steps mount and descend the scale of spirit and matter.(319) With Pagans and Christians, with Hindûs and Chaldeans, with Greek as with Roman Catholics—the texts varying slightly in their interpretations—they all were the Genii of the seven planets, and of the seven planetary spheres of our septenary Chain, of which Earth is the lowest. This connects the “Stellar” and “Lunar” Spirits with the higher planetary Angels, and the Saptarshis, the Seven Rishis of the Stars, of the Hindûs—as subordinate Angels, or Messengers, to these Rishis, their emanations, on the descending scale. Such, in the opinion of the philosophical Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped by the Christians! The “Fallen Angels” and the legend of the “War in Heaven” are thus purely pagan in their origin, and come from India, viá Persia and Chaldea. The only reference to them in the Christian canon is found in Revelation xii, as quoted a few pages back. 33Thus “Satan,” once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, unphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who makes of a terrestrial, a divine Man; who gives him, throughout the long cycle of Mahâkalpa, the law of the Spirit of Life, and makes him free from the Sin of Ignorance, hence of Death. 346. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARD AND UPWARD (a).... 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