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In the old books, the word Janna is defined as “reforming one’s self by meditation and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically; the Book of Dzyan. See Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 129, note. 24 Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it. 35 See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 27. 46 Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 23. 57 Ain í Akbari, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller, op. cit. 610 Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith (see his Chaldean Account of Genesis), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation. 711 Egypt’s Place in History, i. 200. 812 Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 66. 913 E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 77. 1014 Lassen (Ind. Althersumkunde, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that. 1115 Rev. J. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 87. 1216 See, for example, Max Müller’s Lectures. 1320 See Max Müller, op. cit., pp. 288 et seq. This relates to the clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc. 1421 From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky. 1522 Lün‐Yü (§ I a); Schott, Chinesische Literatur, p. 7; quoted by Max Müller. 1623 Life and Teachings of Confucius, p. 96. 1725 The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς. 1826 Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book Sepher Jetzirah, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, c. 7, etc.; and Franck, Die Kabbalah, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his books on Magic. 1927 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels “fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical. 2028 Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term, ἀλήθεια—the breath of God. 2129 Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving” (Principles of Human Knowledge, Introd., par. 10), may put the question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini’s materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?” And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See Science and the Emotions, a Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.) 2232 We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the Kabalah also “the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first chapters of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,” especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now demonstrated to be. 2333 See that suggestive work, The Source of Measures, where the author explains the real meaning of the word Sacr’ from which “sacred,” “sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of holiness, though purely phallic! 2436 See the Vedânta Sâra, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also The Aphorisms of Shândilya, translated by Cowell, p. 42. 2538 Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this, compare Major Jacob’s Vedânta Sâra. Yet, the whole of antiquity echoes the thought: 26Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur— 27as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception. 2839 The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm, is derived by some from the root brih, to grow or to expand (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root vish, to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ‐Vishnu thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah). 2940 See Manu’s account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of Genesis. 3041 Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published, we would recommend especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, New Aspects of Life and Religion, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown First Cause,” merits quotation. 31“This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable [as abstract space, granted]: and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either self‐existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself. 32“And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation.” (Op. cit., p. 5.) 33This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic creator, an extra‐cosmic, instead of an intra‐cosmic God. Many of Dr. Pratt’s subjects—most of them we may say—are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however, viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater‐Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to. 3442 In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term Mûlaprakriti (from mûla, root, and prakriti, nature), or the unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam’s Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to Parabrahman. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Shvetâshvatara Upanishad, I, 8, and Devî Bhâgavata Purâna. The author of the Four lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the Logos’] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it.” (Theosophist, VIII, 304.) 3543 Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light every intra‐cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature, from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one. 3644 By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the so‐called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor Pralaya, when everything having remained in statu quo—in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly. 3745 In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his First Principles (p. 482)? Or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.” 3846 Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is called the Sub‐Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer. 3948 The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” cannot be Absolute for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term. 4049 See T. Subba Row’s four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in The Theosophist, Feb. 1887. 4150 Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc. 4251 “Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it Sûtrâtmâ (Thread‐Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedântins themselves. 4352 It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages. 4453 Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable. 4555 It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of Vishnu Purâna: “By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a foot‐note: “This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They ‘perish’ not, but are reäbsorbed.” 4658 Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India. 4759 Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten‐brel Chug‐nyi) are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced. 4860 See Wassilief, Der Buddhismus, pp. 97‐128. 4961 The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of Being, or Mahâkalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven. 5062 Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong‐Grub. 5163 See Dzungarian Mani Kumbum, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.” Also consult Wassilief’s Der Buddhismus, pp. 327 and 357, etc. 5264 In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self‐Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.” Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the “reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. 5365 In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma’s Opened Eye.” Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so‐called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men. 5467 And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: “Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!). And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that “we learn from Lalita‐Vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self‐maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama’s time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self‐maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in Gautama’s time. 5568 It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of Philosophy, show traces of Buddha’s influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the learners.” 5669 Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi. 5770 Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non‐Being and Unconsciousness. 5871 “Paramârthasatya” is self‐consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self‐ analyzing reflection—from parama, above everything, and artha, comprehension; satya meaning absolute true being, or esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion‐creating appearance.” 5973 Âryâsanga was a pre‐Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two. 6076 Finite self‐consciousness, I mean. For how can the Absolute attain this otherwise than simply as an aspect, the highest of which aspects known to us is human consciousness? 6177 See Schwegler’s Handbook of the History of Philosophy, in Sterling’s translation, p. 28. 6278 Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond‐holder; in Tibetan Dorjesempa, sempa meaning the soul; its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the Kâla Chakra, the first in the Gyut division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyâni‐Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi‐ Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and will be more fully explained in its proper place. 6379 To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations of the World‐Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self‐consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ‐man, as man in whom the Unity of God‐man [identity of the individual with the universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.”—Philosophy of History, Sibree’s English Translation, p. 340. 6483 “Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in abscondita. 6584 Hence Non‐Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Âdi‐Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ; the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita Philosophy. 6688 An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. 6789 Gross, The Heathen Religion, p. 195. 6891 A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal, and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin. 69100 The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs. 70101 Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Occultism. 71102 The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found in the Shatapatha Brâmanah and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious things.” We will speak of them, hereafter. 72103 “The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations.’ In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.” (Bhagavadgîtâ, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and Âtmâ‐Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the higher plane. 73105 Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 314. 74109 Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism. 75110 “Whom thou knowest now as Kwan‐Shai‐Yin.”—Comment. 76111 Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven. 77112 “Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root‐number of the Hindû Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses. 78116 The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers. 79117 See Chinese Buddhism, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous. 80119 By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric “Buddhists.” 81120 Fitzedward Hall’s edition, in the Bibliotheca Indica, p. 16. 82121 Anugîtâ, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang’s Translation, p. 333. 83122 See Mariette’s Abydos, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122. 84124 Od is the pure life‐giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown. 85125 This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God‐Spirit or Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally. 86126 Compare Dowson’s Dictionary of Hindû Mythology, p. 57. 87127 Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood. 88128 The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan (Deuteronomy, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind” (Leviticus xi. 22.), is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in connection with certain superstitions—e.g., that of the Russian people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is “unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having appeared under the form of a dove. 89130 Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire‐Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element. 90132 “Para” gives the force of beyond, outside. 91139 The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences. 92141 Popular Astronomy, pp. 507, 508. 93142 American Journal of Science, July, 1870. 94143 Winchell, World‐Life, pp. 83‐5. 95147 This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit from one simple rush‐light without diminishing the flame. 96148 Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang’s Translation. 97153 Telang’s Translation, Sacred Books of the East, viii. 278. 98158 The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems. 99159 In the Kabalah, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6 (ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.” (Book of the Keys.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabalah, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all. 100160 The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See “Hebrew Metrology,” in The Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141. 101161 We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, “Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the “Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero). 102163 The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named. It is the eternal Kârana, the ever‐acting Cause. 103164 vi. 15. The Anugîtâ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the Mahâbhârata. The translator of the Bhagavadgîtâ, edited by Max Müller, regards it as a continuation of the Bhagavadgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads. 104165 This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo‐Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity. 105166 It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another, etc. 106167 These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves. 107168 In a polemical scientific work, The Modern Genesis (p. 48), the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell, World‐Life, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever solve it. “Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest,” says an Occult teaching. It is “when heat caused by the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind.” A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later on. 108170 Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized Kabalah. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira, Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with “Father‐Mother” on the mystic plane. 109175 This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the Kabalah. Therefore this Triad answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom. 110176 The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions.” (Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The Sun‐day ought to be Uranus‐day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the learned writer. 111178 “The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches us. 112179 See Anugîtâ, Telang, x. 9; and Aitareya Brâhmana, Haug, p. 1. 113180 This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth’s region; vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested world. 114181 Manas—the Mind‐Principle, or the Human Soul. 115183 See Correlation of Physical Forces, 1843, p. 81; and Address to the British Association, 1866. 116184 Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in The Fuel of the Sun; of Dr. C. William Siemens, On the Conservation of Solar Energy (Nature, XXV, 440‐444, March 9, 1882); and also of Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an Address, as the President of the Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See World‐Life, by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, et seq. 117185 When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not really belong to it, in spite of its apparent connection with our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is mâyâvic, imaginary, they say. 118187 These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the Atharva Veda as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1‐4, et seq.) 119188 Conflict between Religion and Science, pp. 132 and 133. 120189 Principles of Science, II. 455. 121190 Les Mystères de l’Horoscope, Ely Star, p. xi. 122192 The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this Commentary.) 123193 That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought. 124197 See A. P. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism, 5th annotated edition, pp. 171‐173. 125198 The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow‐ Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D., in the district of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha. 126199 T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ, in the Theosophist, vol. ix.) 127200 Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881. 128201 It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact? 129202 See The Masonic Cyclopædia, Mackenzie; and The Pythagorean Triangle, Oliver. 130203 Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun. 131205 See Isis Unveiled, II., 430‐438. 132206 See Dowson’s Hindû Classical Dictionary. 133209 See Kabbalah Denudata, “De Anima,” p. 113. 134210 “The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric theory was also taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the earth’s shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny. (Nat. Hist., II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, World‐ Life, 551‐2.) 135213 Abridged from Principia Rerum Naturalium. 136215 That is: the First is now the Second World. 137216 The Formless Universe of Thought. 138217 The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual. 139218 In the Rig Veda, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see Brihadâranyaka Upanishad; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father of the Gods.” 140220 Having already taken the first three. 141222 The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the “double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka. 142225 See The Occult World, pp. 89, 90. 143226 Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei” (Clemens, Stromata, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the Zends, II. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard, Académie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV. 144228 Antiquities, I. VIII, ch. xxii. 145230 “Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits. The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael; Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels. 146232 The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty‐seven translators of King James’ Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (Royal Masonic Cyclopædia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed. 147233 The vertical line or the figure 1. 148236 The Formless World and the World of Forms. 149237 Theosophist, Feb., 1877, p. 303. 150238 These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men. 151239 Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream‐like” illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy. 152240 Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in Pistis‐Sophia (Knowledge‐Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia (Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within every man’s soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms. 153241 A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy, by N. Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library. 154242 Träume eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann’s Spiritismus. 155243 Le Livre des Morts, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61. 156244 See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of “Come To Us,” The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rougé. 157247 The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, p. 305. 158249 Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of time. 159251 From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased. 160252 Five Years of Theosophy, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 200. 161255 Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888. 162258 A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brâhmanical calculations. 163259 See the Scientific Arena, a monthly journal devoted to current philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July, August, and September, 1886. 164260 Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls “Etheric Centres,” by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous “Motor”—destined, as his admirers have hoped, to revolutionize the motor power of the world. 165261 The moon is dead only so far as regards her inner principles—i.e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi‐paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the “Insane Mother,” the great sidereal lunatic. 166262 Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brâhmanical teachings and even some Hindû calendars declare. 167263 The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213. 168264 In Esoteric Buddhism and Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. 169265 Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works. 170267 See, in Esoteric Buddhism, “The Constitution of Man,” and the “Planetary Chain.” 171271 Kosha is “sheath” literally, the sheath of every principle. 172272 Sthûla‐upâdhi, or basis of the principle. 173274 The Astral Body, or Linga Sharîra. 174277 Extract from the Teacher’s letters on various topics. 175278 We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally. 176281 Esoteric Buddhism (5th ed.), p. 46. 177285 Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds: there is the Individual Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next—seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the Planetary Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the Solar Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the Universal Pralaya, Mahâ or Brahmâ Pralaya, at the close of the Age of Brahmâ. These are the chief Pralayas or “destruction periods.” There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned at present. 178288 “Physical” here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work; that “physical side,” nevertheless, if objective to the apperception of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our plane. 179296 The Natures of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and Dhyân Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant. 180297 Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller Wheels. 181303 Isis Unveiled, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, Sôd: the Son of the Man, pp. 51 et seq. 182304 On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and of the Codex itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded “Spirit” as a female and evil Power, in its connection with our Earth. 183305 Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who “created man” as a “shell” only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light, and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists. 184306 The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; Kâma Rûpa minus Manas, Mind. 185308 This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindû Manu, the Heavenly Man of the Rig Veda. 186309 “I am the true Vine, and my father is the husbandman.” (John, xv. 1.) 187310 With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some respects, was the “Chief of the Æons.” 188312 See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes. 189314 They are found, however, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers. 190316 For the difference between nous, the higher divine Wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see St. James, iii. 15‐17. 191317 Jehovah’s connection with the Moon in the Kabalah is well known to students. 192318 For the Nazarenes, see Isis Unveiled, II. 131 and 132. The true followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and Christians, and were the opponents of the later Christians. 193319 See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where, as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark with matter. 194320 The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe. 195322 For a clearer explanation of the above, see “Saptaparna” in the Index. 196325 See Index, at the words “Evolution,” “Darwin,” “Kapila,” “Battle of Life,” etc. 197334 That which was natural in the sight of primitive man, has only now become miracle to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could never be expressed in our language. 198335 There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the Hindû people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncrasy and national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third Race. 199339 Âtmâ‐Buddhi, Spirit‐Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles. 200342 Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the constellation of the Great Bear. 201344 Rosenroth, Liber Mysterii IV. 1. 202346 Auszüge aus dem Zohar, pp. 13‐15. 203351 A World, when called a “higher World,” is not higher by reason of its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet such a World is generally understood by the profane as “Heaven,” and located above our heads. 204352 Of Form, the Sthûla Sharîra, External Body. 205354 Ἄνθρωπος, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I. 206359 The Seven Souls of Man, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey. 207364 P. Pierret, Études Égyptologiques. 208368 Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were taught in our earlier volumes, Isis Unveiled. Though in that work the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages, nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it is said: “They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.” Our Globe, in the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it is written: “In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded on philosophy, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ... terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc., etc.”—the seventh—SPIRIT. So clearly are these principles mentioned, that even in the Index (II. 683), one finds “Six Principles of Man,” the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six, and not a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL. 209370 pp. 340‐351, “Genesis of the Soul.” 210372 Asiatic Researches, xi. 99, 100. 211376 Book of the Dead, i. 7. Compare also Mysteries of Rostan. 212379 The first Shadow of the Physical Man. 213383 The formation of the “Living Soul,” or Man, would render the idea more clearly. A “Living Soul” is a synonym of Man in the Bible. These are our seven “Principles.” 214384 Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha, xxii. 746. 215391 Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second, Prâna, for Nephesh is the “Breath of Life” in man, as in beast or insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it. 216392 Éliphas Lévi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he repeats the first two. 217393 Zohar, “Idra Suta,” Book iii., p. 292b. 218395 Read, in Isis Unveiled (ii. 297‐303), the doctrine of the Codex Nazaræus. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory. 219397 The word “Sin” is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent. 220398 Professor Zöllner’s theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance. 221399 “The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects.” (Bain, Logic, Part II. p. 389.) 222400 The Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite. 223402 Five Years of Theosophy, p. 169. 224403 In the Sânkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or “productive productions,” are Mahat, Ahamkâra, and the five Tanmâtras. See Sânkhya Kârikâ, III., and the Commentary thereon. 225404 See Linga Purâna, Prior Section, lxx. 12 et seq.; and Vâyu Purâna, ch. iv., but especially the former Purâna—Prior Section, viii. 67‐74. 226405 Vishnu Purâna, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hindûs, who know their Purânas by heart, but very useful to remind our Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson’s translations as authoritative, that, in his English translation of the Vishnu Purâna, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the seven zones of Brahmâ’s Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven envelopes. Wilson comments: “by Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Ahamkâra”—which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same Purâna, it is written: “in this manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth” (?). Between Mahat, or Mahâ‐Buddhi, and “Water, etc.”, the difference is very considerable. 227406 According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was a perpetual becoming. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above‐quoted thinker said: “God (the Universal Spirit) objectivizes himself as Nature, and again rises out of it.” 228407 Book of Dzyan, Comm. III, par. 18. 229412 See, for example, Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quichés, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes. The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are almost identical. 230414 T. Subba Row, Five Years of Theosophy, p. 154. 231415 Also called the “Sons of Wisdom” and of the “Fire‐Mist,” and the “Brothers of the Sun,” in the Chinese records. Si‐dzang (Tibet) is mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo‐ Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial, ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the “Great” (2,207 B.C.), a pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge from the “Great Teachers of the Snowy Range” in Si‐dzang. 232417 The Virgin of the World, pp. 134‐5. 233418 Paracelsus, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44. 234419 This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian; “Mysterium is everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the ‘Mysterium’ of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.” 235421 It is only the mediæval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two Neo‐Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two. 236422 “This doctrine, preached 300 years ago,” remarks the translator, “is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still more elaborated by Kapila in the Sânkhya philosophy.” 237423 The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature in abscondito. 238425 A frequent expression in the said “Fragments,” to which we take exception. The Universal Mind is not a Being or “God.” 239426 The Virgin of the World, p. 47. “Asclepios,” Pt. I. 240428 The Virgin of the World, p. 153. 241429 Op. cit., pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the “Physical Eclogues” and “Florilegium” of Stobæus. 242430 Vishnu Purâna, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13‐15. 243432 This teaching does not refer to Prakriti‐Purusha beyond the boundaries of our small universe. 244433 The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirvânic condition of the Seventh Principle. 245434 The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness. 246435 Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogeneous matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either. 247436 “Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor sets, and is at once, the seven‐fold sun and distinct from it,” says Vishnu Purâna, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296). 248437 “In the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as in a mirror), that is there stationed.” (Ibid., loc. cit.) 249438 Compare the Hermetic “Nature” “going down cyclically into matter when she meets the ‘Heavenly Man’.” 250439 The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view. 251440 Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 110, 111, art., “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.” 252441 See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika and the four Mahârâjahs, the agents of Karma. 253442 And “Gods” or Dhyânis, too, not only the Genii or “guided Forces.” 254443 The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements—Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether—the Elementals which respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their coëssence. That Element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element, the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals—money and wealth, and so on. “Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of man,” says Paracelsus. (De Fundamento Sapientiæ.) Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all. 255444 Cyclic progress in development. 256445 The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyân Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own Seventh Principle. 257446 Now, what “God” is meant here? Not God the “Father,” the anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by the “few in number.” And it is precisely such men who believe in “Gods”, and know no “God” but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity. 258447 The Virgin of the World, pp. 104‐5, “The Definitions of Asclepios.” 259449 National Reformer, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno‐Kosmo‐ Biology,” by Dr. Lewins. 260450 This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness. 261453 As far as “Divine Revelation” is concerned, we agree. Not so with regard to “human history.” For there is “history” in most of the allegories and “myths” of India; and events, real actual events, are concealed under them. 262454 When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Âryans and ancient Hindûs, and even the pre‐Homeric Hellenes. 263457 Guide au Musée de Boulaq, pp. 148, 149. 264458 As we said in Isis Unveiled (II. 438‐9): “To the present moment, in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Chandâlas of old India, the ‘bricklayers’ mentioned by Veda‐Vyâsa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The Bible names the Tyrians as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the time of Moses, for the Bible shows them freely intermarrying not alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they came in contact with.” 265459 Knowledge, Vol. I; see also Petrie’s letter to The Academy, Dec. 17, 1881. 266460 The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 9. 267462 The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 93. 268469 George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 299, 300. 269471 As a reminder how the esoteric religion of Moses was crushed several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as reëstablished by David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare Isis Unveiled (II. 436‐42). Surely there must have been some very good reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests of Judæa, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged “Books of Moses,” the Pentateuch of the Synagogue and the Talmud? 270472 Once more, remember the Hindû Wittoba crucified in space; the significance of the “sacred sign,” the Svastika; Plato’s Decussated Man in Space, etc. 271473 See farther on the description given of the early Âryan Initiation: of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his beams—on a cruciform lathe. 272474 Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible, by the author (unknown) of The Stars and the Angels, 1870, p. 14. 273476 Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized Bible itself in Genesis (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to the land of Nod and there marrying a wife. 274481 Taittirîyaka Upanishad, Second Vallî, First Anuvâka. 275483 Oracles of Zoroaster, “Effatum,” xvi. 276486 Op. cit., I. 5‐13, Burnell’s translation. 277487 The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle. 278488 See A. Coke Burnell’s translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D. 279489 Ahamkâra, as universal Self‐Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as has also Manas. For this “conception of I,” or the Ego, is either sattva, “pure quietude,” or appears as rajas, “active,” or remains tamas, “stagnant,” in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether. 280490 See Sânkhya Kârikâ III, and Commentaries. 281491 The word “eternity,” by which Christian theologians interpret the term “for ever and ever,” does not exist in the Hebrew tongue. “Oulam,” says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is not known. It does not mean “infinite duration,” and the term “for ever,” in the Old Testament, only signifies a “long time.” Nor is the word “eternity” used in the Christian sense in the Purânas. For in Vishnu Purâna, it is clearly stated that by “eternity” and “immortality” only “existence to the end of the Kalpa” is meant. (Book II. chap. viii.) 282492 Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by comparing it even with Hesiod’s Theogony. Yet the truly Âryan Hindû spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, “Cosmogonies Âryennes,” in his Essais Orientaux.) Thus the original Greek conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its pre‐cosmic state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy. 283493 The manifested Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are one in essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their primal character, are one also. 284494 Sepher Yetzirah, Chap. I. Mishna ix. 285495 Ibid. It is from “Arba” that Abram is derived. 286497 Sepher Yetzirah, Mishna ix. 10. 287498 Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. 288500 Suidas, sub voc. “Tyrrhenia.” See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 309, 2nd ed. 289501 The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not mere periods of 13 lunar months each. 290502 See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius. 291505 Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the theos ek petras—the God from the rock. 292506 Bordj is called a fire‐mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or passive, elements. The myth is suggestive. 293508 Henry Pratt, M.D., New Aspects of Life. 294510 Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, “the disposer of all things.” Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 314. 295513 With the Greeks, the River‐Gods, all of them the Sons of the Primeval Ocean—Chaos, in its masculine aspect—were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (Metaph. I. 3‐5.) 296516 The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation of the latent force, or Occult potency. 297517 Orthography of the Archaic Dictionary. 298518 We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained. 299520 It is “unutterable” for the simple reason that it is non‐existent. It never was either a name, or any word at all, but an idea that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era. 300521 The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (Antiq. I. viii. ch. xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have their abodes in these four points respectively. 301522 Isaac Myer’s Qabbalah, published 1888, p. 415. 302523 As, for instance, in Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I. 303524 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, lvi. 304528 Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall’s rendering. 305529 Just as Mûlaprakriti is known only to Îshvara, the Logos, as he is called by T. Subba Row. 306533 The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians. 307539 We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more comprehensible to the reader. 308540 See Dunlap, Sôd: the Mysteries of Adoni, 23. 309541 With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term “Eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning applied by Vedântins to Parabrahman, for instance. 310543 In the Indian Pantheon the double‐sexed Logos is Brahmâ, the Creator, whose seven “Mind‐born” Sons are the primeval Rishis—the Builders. 311544 Says Rabbi Simeon: “Oh, companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and woman, as well on the side of the ‘Father’ as on the side of the ‘Mother.’ And this is the sense of the words: ‘And Elohim spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light’; ... and this is the two‐fold man.” (Auszüge ans dem Sohar, 13, 15.) Light, then, in Genesis, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or “Heavenly Man.” 312548 Chaldean Account of Genesis, 62, 63. 313549 The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake Mânsarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the Vedas were written. 314550 See Petronius, Satyricon, cxxxvi. 315551 Progress of Religious Ideas, I. 17 et seq. 316562 See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.” 317563 A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was taken from the Indian sunyan, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth (Sephrim) were taken from the word cipher, not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by vertical line]. 318564 See King’s Gnostics and their Remains, 370 (2nd ed.). 319566 The year of his birth is given as 608 B.C. 320577 Weber, Akad‐Vorles, 213, et seq. 321578 The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson’s theory that the first living germ had dropped to the earth from some passing comet. Query: Why should this be called scientific and the Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish theory? 322579 Compare Movers, Phoinizer, 268. 323580 His triadic Goddesses are Sati and Anouki. 324581 Ptah was originally the god of Death, of Destruction, like Shiva. He is a Solar God only by virtue of the Sun’s fire killing as well as vivifying. He was the national God of Memphis, the radiant and “fair‐faced” God. 325583 Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. Pref. lxxxiv‐v. 326584 There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of “pork and rice”; a very prosaic end, indeed, with little of the solemn element in it! This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been born in the “Boar” or Varâha Kalpa, when Vishnu assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the “Waters of Space.” Now as the Brâhmans descend direct from Brahmâ and are, so to speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have this curious allegorical hint and combination. The Brâhmanism of the Boar or Varâha Kalpa has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it from its face. Therefore Buddha, who is identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. The very idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life—even to refusing to eat eggs as being vehicles of latent life—dying of an indigestion of meat, is absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But the present explanation, however, unveils the allegory, and makes clear all the rest. The Varâha, however, is no simple Boar, but seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal “delighting to sport in water.” (Vâyu Purâna.) 327585 According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the “Great War” took place in 1370 B.C., (Asiatic Researches, xi. 116.); according to Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may yet hope, before the end of this century, to see the Mahâbhâratan epic proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon. 328588 In the Vedânta and Nyâya, Nimitta, from which Naimittika, is rendered as the Efficient Cause, when antithesized with Upâdâna, the Physical or Material Cause. In the Sânkhya, Pradhâna is a cause inferior to Brahmâ, or rather Brahmâ being himself a cause, is superior to Pradhâna. Hence “Incidental” is a wrong translation, and ought to be rendered, as shown by some scholars, “Ideal” Cause: even Real Cause would have been better. 329591 Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, VI, iii. 330592 The chief Kumâra, or Virgin‐God, a Dhyân Chohan who refuses to create. A prototype of St. Michael, who also refuses to do so. 331593 See concluding lines in Section, “Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.” 332595 This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an eternal, everlasting Hell for its followers. 333596 The term “Elements” must be here understood to mean not only the visible and physical elements, but also that which St. Paul calls Elements—the Spiritual, Intelligent Potencies—Angels and Demons in their manvantaric forms. 334597 When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists, in its esoteric significance, then it will be found that this cosmic correlation of World‐Elements may explain the correlation of physical forces better than those now known. At any rate, Theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has seven forms, or principles, “reckoned from Mahat to Earth.” The “Waters” mean here the mystic “Mother”; the Womb of Abstract Nature, in which the Manifested Universe is conceived. The seven “zones” have reference to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or the Noumena of the Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical. 335598 Vishnu Purâna, Bk. VI. Ch. iv., Wilson’s mistakes being corrected and the original terms put in brackets. 336599 As it is the Mahâ, the Great, or so‐called Final, Pralaya which is here described, every thing is reäbsorbed into its original One Element; the “Gods themselves, Brahmâ and the rest” being said to die and disappear during that long “Night.” 337601 From the Siphra Dtzenioutha, c. i. § 16 et seq.; as quoted in Myer’s Qabbalah, 232‐3. 338602 Compare the Siphra Dtzenioutha. 339605 See Jacolliot’s Les Fils de Dieu, and L’Inde des Brahmes, p. 230. 340606 If this is not prophetic, what is? 341607 Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, Bk. IV. Ch. xxiv. 342608 The Matsya Purâna gives Katâpa. 343610 Max Müller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to which Chandragupta belonged. (See History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature). In Matsya Purâna, chapter cclxxii, the dynasty of ten Moryas, or Maureyas, is spoken of. In the same chapter, it is stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India, after restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that reign will be purely spiritual and “not of this world.” It will be the kingdom of the next Avatâra. Colonel Tod believes the name Morya, or Maurya, a corruption of Mori, a Rajpût tribe, and the commentary on the Mahâvanso thinks that some princes have taken their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or as Professor Max Müller gives it, Morya‐Nâgara, which is more correct, after the original Mahâvanso. The Sanskrit Encyclopedia, Vâchaspattya, we are informed by our Brother, Devan Bâdhâdur R. Ragoonath Rao, of Madras, places Katâpa (Kalâpa) on the northern side of the Himâlayas, hence in Tibet. The same is stated in the Bhâgavata Purâna, Skanda xii. 344611 Ibid., ch. iv. The Vayu Purâna declares that Moru will reëstablish the Kshattriyas in the Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See Five Years of Theosophy, 483, art. “The Moryas and Koothoomi.”) 345612 See Dissertations Relating to Asia. 346615 In the Indian Purânas, it is Vishnu, the First, and Brahmâ, the Second Logos, or the Ideal and Practical Creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the Lotus, the other as issuing from it. 347616 Not the efforts, however, of the trained psychic faculties of an Initiate into Eastern Metaphysics, and the Mysteries of Creative Nature. It is the Profane of the past ages, who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the Esoteric Teachings, and the Initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception, so sadly profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations, by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity. 348617 Surely the words of the old Initiate into the primitive Mysteries of Christianity, “Know ye not ye are the Temple of God” (1 Corinth, iii. 16), could not be applied in this sense to men; though the meaning was, undeniably, so stated, in the minds of the Hebrew compilers of the Old Testament. And here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the New Testament and the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained, and have ever widened, had not Christianity, especially and most glaringly the Latin Church, thrown a bridge over it. Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic and, at the same time idolatrous, character it has conferred upon the Mother of its God. 349618 It was so carried only in the Hebrew Bible, and its servile copyist, Christian theology. 350619 The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of the exodus from Egypt. The Lord God tempts Pharaoh sorely, and “plagues him with great plagues,” lest the king should escape punishment, and thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his “chosen people.” 351620 Exodus, ii. 10. Even to the seven daughters of the Midianite priest, who came to draw water, and whom Moses helped to water their flock; for which service the Midian gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, or Sippara, the shining Wave, as wife. (Exod. ii. 16‐21.) All this has the same secret meaning. 352621 With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth, after 3,000 years of purification, either in Devachan or the “Fields of Bliss.” 353622 Such “frog‐Goddesses” may be seen at Boulak, in the Cairo Museum. For the statement about the Church‐lamps and inscriptions, the learned ex‐director of the Boulak Museum, M. Gaston Maspero, must be held responsible. (See his Guide au Musée de Boulaq, p. 146.) 354623 The Goddess Τρίμορφος in the statuary of Alcamenes. 355624 Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology. The planets were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our Solar System, the hours of certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was the messenger, appointed to keep time during the daily solar and lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected with the God and Goddess of Light. 356625 A caricatured and dwarfed Vedântin notion of Parabrahman containing within itself the whole Universe, as being that boundless Universe itself, and nothing existing outside of itself. 357626 Just as they are to this day in India; the bull of Shiva, and the cow representing several Shaktis or Goddesses. 358627 Hence the worship of the Moon by the Hebrews. 359628 “Male and female, created he them.” 360629 Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as THAT in the Vedas. It is the “Eternal Cause,” and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a “First Cause,” a term implying the absence of Cause, at one time. 361630 Pneumatologie: Des Esprits, tom. III. p. 117; “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère.” 362634 See De Diis Syriis, Teraph., II. Synt. p. 31. 363637 Cornutus, De Natura Deorum, xxxiv. 1. 364638 The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that “May is sacred to Maia (Μαῖα) or Vesta” (Aulus Gellius, sub voc. Maia), our mother‐earth, our nurse and nourisher, personified. 365639 Thot‐Lunus is the Budha‐Soma of India, or Mercury and the Moon. 366641 The Earth flees for her life, in the allegory, before Prithu, who pursues her. She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with terror, runs away and hides even in the regions of Brahmâ. Therefore, it is not our Earth. Again, in every Purâna, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Svâyambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himâlayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a deeper allegory than one may be inclined to think. 367642 His clear realization is, that the Egyptians prophesied Jehovah (!) and his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc.; even to identifying Typhon with the wicked dragon of the garden of Eden. And this passes as serious and sober science! 368643 Hathor is the infernal Isis, the Goddess preëminently of the West or the Nether World. 369644 This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and he ought to know. See “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère,” in his Des Esprits, pp. 111‐113. 370646 De Mirville, Ibid., pp. 116 and 119. 371650 Wägner and McDowall, Asgard and the Gods, p. 86. 372651 See De Vitâ Apollionii, I. xiv. 373653 Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis, I. 340. 374656 De Mundi Opif., Par., pp. 30 and 419. 375657 For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and lower human nature. 376658 Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four‐fold division. It is the root of archaic classification. 377659 In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by four Dragons—the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas. 378668 James, i. 2, 12; Matth., vi. 13. See Cruden, sub voc. 379672 See Chwolsohn, Nabathean Agriculture, II. 217. 380673 One Day of Brahmâ lasts 4,320,000,000 years—multiply this by 360! The A‐suras (No‐gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in the Vedas. The duration of the War shows its significance, and also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of odium theologicum that the illusive form Mâyâmoha, assumed by Vishnu, was attributed in later reärrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, as in the Vishnu Purâna, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the Bhagavadgîtâ, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Chârvâka materialists. The version exists nowhere in other Purânas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the Vishnu Purâna; the translation of which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas, led to another “great war” between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting Purânic texts. “I affirm,” wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, “that the Purânas do not contain what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them; ... 381until such passages are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that Professor Wilson’s opinion, that the Purânas as now extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries [A.D.!], rests solely on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded assertions, and that his reasoning in support of it is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.” (See Vishnu Purâna, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V, Appendix.) 382674 This statement belongs to the third War, since the terrestrial continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it. 383675 Vishnu Purâna, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204‐5). 384676 Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of Prahlâda—the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Purânic Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds—into whose heart Vishnu entered. 385677 Ibid., I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64). 386679 “There was a day when the Sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan came with his brothers, also before the Lord.” (Job ii., Abyss., Ethiopic text.) 387681 Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society, xix. 302. 388682 Wilson’s opinion that the Vishnu Purâna is a production of our era, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing. 389686 See The Monthly Magazine, for April, 1797. 390687 Ἤτοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γ’eνετ ̓ (l. 166); γένετο being considered in antiquity as meaning: “was generated” and not simply “was.” (See Taylor’s “Introd. to the Parmenides of Plato,” p. 260.) 391688 It is the confusion between the “Bound,” and the “Infinite,” that Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brâhman Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the “Highest One.” 392690 See T. Taylor’s article in his Monthly Magazine, quoted in the Platonist of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola, Missouri. 393693 Vâch—the “melodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,” and yields us “nourishment and sustenance,” as described in the Rig Veda. 394694 The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, pp. 302‐3. 395696 The Masonic Review, June, 1886. 396697 Objective—in the world of Mâyâ, of course; still as real as we are. 397698 “In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be called his Daughter.” (“Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” op. cit., p. 305.) 398699 The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures. 399700 The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators, Vyâkritis, or Aum, Bhûh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven), Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with breath suppressed. See Manu II. 76‐81, and Mitakshara commenting on the Yâjnavâkhya‐Smriti, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation goes a great deal further. 400701 “Lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” ibid., p. 307. 401702 It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the “Three Steps of Vishnu,” which mean—Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in exotericism—that from Parabrahman issued Mûlaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms—with itself, the synthesis—of Vâch. And in the Kabalah, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct—yet One. 402703 Chaldean Book of Numbers. In the current Kabalah the name Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon. 403704 Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for admission into their school. 404705 Diogenes Laërtius, in Vit. Pythag. 405706 31415, or π, the synthesis, or the Host unified in the Logos and the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the “Angel of the Face,” and in Hebrew, Michael, מיכאל, “who [is like unto, or the same] as God,” the manifested representation. 406707 Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received their name in Chaldæa, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from Kob, “measure of,” and Urim, “Heavens.” 407709 See Kircher’s Œdipus Ægypt., II. 423. 408710 This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Nâga, the Serpent‐God. Brahmâ and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and connected with Nâgas—a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character. 409713 Says the translator of Avicebron’s Qabbalah of this “Sum Total”: “The letter of Kether is י (Yod), of Binah ה (Heh), together YaH, the feminine Name; the third letter, that of ’Hokhmah, is ו (Vav), making together יהו YHV of יהוה YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last ה (Heh) of this Ineffable Name being always applied to the Six Lower and the last, together the Seven remaining Sephiroth.” (Myer’s Qabbalah, p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, it is phallic. 410714 The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in Esoteric Buddhism—the gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age—one has also to accept the statement for the so‐called Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root‐Race, which was first nearly destroyed by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: “The First Earth having been purified by the Forty‐nine Fires, her people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth [with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty‐two Cyclic Years ago.” Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is embodied in the “Kings of Edom.” 411715 The same reserve is found in the Talmud and in every national system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the “Kether Malchuth,” we select a few definitions given in the prayers of Kippûr: “Thou art One, the beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of multiplication, change or form. Thou art Existent; but the understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence, nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for Thou art Thyself, the Soul of all Souls.” There is a distance between this Kabalistical Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the last. No Vedântin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman! 412716 Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, ch. xx. And very wisely have they acted. 413717 If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the “changes,” in other words, rebirths of man, and constant transformations. He denied immortality to the Personality of man, as we do, not to Man. 414718 He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics have no right to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and sacrilege. For it is over 200 years since Confucius was canonized as a Saint in China by the Roman Catholics, who have thereby obtained many converts among the ignorant Confucianists. 415719 The animals regarded as sacred in the Bible are by no means few in number; as, for instance, the Goat, the Azaz‐el, or God of Victory. As Aben Ezra says: “If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His [God’s] name, for it has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion one portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have thirty three years of age thou wilt comprehend me.” So with the mystery of the Tortoise. Rejoicing over the poetry of biblical metaphors, associating “incandescent stones,” “sacred animals,” etc., with the name of Jehovah, and quoting from the Bible de Vence (XIX. 318) a pious French writer says: “Indeed all of them are Elohim, like their God”; for, these Angels, “ ‘assume,’ through a holy usurpation, ‘the very divine name of Jehovah each time they represent him’.” (De Mirville, Des Esprits.) No one ever doubted that the Name must have been assumed, when under the guise of the Infinite, One Incognizable, the Malachim, or Messengers, descended to eat and drink with men. But if the Elohim and even lower Beings, assuming the God‐name, were and are still worshipped, why should the same Elohim be called Devils, when appearing under the names of other Gods? 416721 Bryant is right in saying “Druid bardism says of Noah that when he came out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein of a year and a day, that is 364 + 1=365 days, he was congratulated by Neptune upon his birth from the waters of the Flood, who wished him a Happy New Year.” The “Year,” or cycle, esoterically, was the new race of men, born from woman, after the Separation of the Sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the allegory; its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the new Creation. 417723 Or literally: “One Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit: THAT was.” The “Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit” is Mûlaprakriti and Parabrahman. 418724 Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. 73‐5. 419725 Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. xxii. 420727 “And the fourth creation is here the primary, for things immovable are emphatically known as primary”—according to a commentary translated by Fitzedward Hall in his editing of Wilson’s translation. 421728 How can “divinities” have been created after the animals? The esoteric meaning of the expression “animals” is the germs of all animal life, including man. Man is called a sacrificial animal, that is, the only one among the animal creation who sacrifices to the Gods. Moreover, by “sacred animals” the twelve Signs of the Zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts, as already stated. 422734 Superior to the Spirits, or “Heavens,” of the Earth only. 423737 See also King’s Gnostics and their Remains, p. 97. Other sects regarded Jehovah as Ialdabaoth himself. King identifies him with Saturn. 424740 Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See supra the quotation from Iba Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc. 425741 This must not be confused with precosmic “DARKNESS,” the Divine ‹Previous chapterThe Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 69Next chapterThe Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 71›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg