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    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "num": 13,
    "slug": "15-stanza-vii----the-parents-of-man-on-earth-213",
    "title": "STANZA VII. -- THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 11345,
    "text": "## STANZA VII. -- THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol. 1, bk 1, sec 7\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 213 THE CREATIVE POWERS.\n\n##### STANZA VII.\n\n1. **B**EHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS\nLIFE (*a*).\n\n**F**IRST, THE DIVINE (*vehicle*)* *(*b*),*\n*THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT (*Atman*)*; *THEN\nTHE **S**PIRITUAL -- (*Atma-Buddhi*,* Spirit-soul*)**\n*(*c*); (*again*)* *THE THREE FROM THE\nONE (*d*), THE FOUR FROM THE ONE (*e*),* *AND\nTHE FIVE (f), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE AND THE SEVEN (*g*)\n-- THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD AND THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE \"MIND-BORN\nSONS OF THE FIRST **L**ORD (*Avalokiteswara*)*\n*THE **S**HINING **S**EVEN (*the\n*\"*Builders*\")*.*** **I**T\nIS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, **O** **L**ANOO;\nTHEY WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER, **B**HUMI\n(*the* *Earth*)*.*\n\n(*a*) The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into\nseven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders, recorded\nin the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting\nscale being connected, moreover, with the Seven Planets. All this\nis subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual,\nand ethereal Beings.\n\nThe Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary,\nor the \"four bodies and the three faculties\" of Brahma\nexoterically, and the Panchasyam, the five Brahmas, or the five\nDhyani-Buddhas in the Buddhist system.\n\nThe highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called,\nalso spoken of as the \"Fiery Lions\" and the \"Lions\nof Life,\" whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal\nsign of Leo. It is the *nucleole *of the superior divine\nWorld (see *Commentary *in first pages of Addendum). They\nare the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the\nupper Sephirothal **T**RIAD, which is placed by the\nKabalists in the \"Archetypal World.\"\n\nThe same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese\nsystem, in the \"Beginnings\" as taught by both the Shinto\nand the Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes\nCosmogenesis, as the Divine merges into the human, and creates\n--\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* This relates to the Cosmic principles.\n\n** The seven creative Rishis now connected with the constellation\nof the Great Bear\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 214 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmidway in its descent into matter -- the visible Universe. The\nlegendary personages -- remarks reverentially Omoie -- \"having\nto be understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the higher (secret)\ndoctrine, and its sublime truths.\" To state it at full length,\nhowever, would occupy too much of our space, but a few words on\nthis old system cannot be out of place. The following is a short\nsynopsis of this Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely\nthe most separated notions echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.\n\nWhen all was as yet Chaos (*Kon-ton*)* *three spiritual\nBeings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) *Ame no\nani naka nushi no Kami*,* *\"Divine Monarch of\nthe Central Heaven\"; (2)* Taka mi onosubi no Kami*,*\n*\"Exalted, imperial Divine offspring of Heaven and the\nEarth\"; and (3)* Kamu mi musubi no Kami*,* *\"Offspring\nof the Gods,\" simply.\n\nThese were without form or substance (our *arupa *triad),\nas neither the celestial nor the terrestrial substance had yet\ndifferentiated, \"nor had the essence of things been formed.\"\n\nIn the Zohar -- which, as now arranged and re-edited by Moses\nde Leon, with the help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian Gnostics\nin the XIIth century, and corrected and revised still later by\nmany Christian hands, is only a little less exoteric than the\nBible itself -- this divine \"Vehicle\" no longer appears\nas it does in the \"Chaldean Book of Numbers.\" True enough,\nAin-Soph, the **A**BSOLUTE **E**NDLESS\n**N**O-THING, uses also the form of the **O**NE,\nthe manifested \"Heavenly man\" (the FIRST CAUSE) as its\nchariot (*Mercabah*,* *in Hebrew; *Vahan*,*\n*in Sanskrit) or vehicle to descend into, and manifest through,\nin the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists neither make it plain\nhow the **A**BSOLUTE can use anything, or exercise\nany attribute whatever, since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of\nattributes; nor do they explain that in reality it is the First\nCause (Plato's* Logos*)* *the original and eternal\nIDEA, that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the *Second *Logos,\nso to speak. In the \"Book of Numbers\" it is explained\nthat **E**N (or *Ain*,* *Aior) is the\nonly self-existent, whereas its \"Depth\"* *(*Bythos*\nor* Buthon *of the Gnostics, called *Propator*)*\n*is only periodical. The latter is Brahm as differentiated\nfrom Brahma or Parabrahm. It is the Depth, the Source of Light,\nor Propator, which is the *unmanifested *Logos or the abstract\n*Idea*, and not Ain-Soph, *whose ray *uses Adam-Kadmon\nor the *manifested *Logos (the objective Universe) \"male\nand female\" -- as a chariot through which to manifest. But\nin the Zohar we read the following incongruity: \"*Senior*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 215 ONE PARENT FLAME, COUNTLESS FLAMES.\n\n*occultatus est et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est*,*\net non manifestus.*\"* *(*Rosenroth; Liber Mysterii*,*\n*IV*.*,* *1.) This is a fallacy, since *Microprosopus\n*or the *microcosm*,* *can only exist during\nits manifestations, and is destroyed during the Maha-Pralayas.\nRosenroth's Kabala is no guide, but very often a puzzle.\n\n(*b*)* *As in the Japanese system, in the Egyptian,\nand every old cosmogony -- at this divine FLAME, The \"One,\"\nare lit the three descending groups. Having their potential being\nin the higher group, they now become distinct and separate Entities.\nThese are called the \"Virgins of Life,\" the \"Great\nIllusion,\" etc., etc., and collectively the \"Six-pointed\nStar.\" The latter is the symbol, in almost every religion,\nof the *Logos *as the first emanation. It is that of Vishnu\nin India (the *Chakra*,* *or wheel), and the glyph\nof the Tetragrammaton, the \"He of the four letters\"\nor -- metaphorically -- \"the limbs of Microprosopos\"\nin the Kabala, which are ten and six respectively. The later Kabalists\nhowever, especially the Christian mystics, have played sad havoc\nwith this magnificent symbol.* For the \"*ten* limbs\"\nof the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth; but the first Heavenly\nMan is the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe, and ought never\nto be degraded into Microprosopus -- the lesser Face or Countenance,\nthe prototype of man on the terrestrial plane.** Of this, however,\nlater on. The six-pointed Star refers to the six Forces or Powers\nof Nature, the six planes, principles, etc., etc., all synthesized\nby the seventh, or the central point in the Star. All these, the\nupper and lower hierarchies included, emanate from the \"Heavenly\nor Celestial Virgin,\"*** the great mother in all religions,\nthe Androgyne, the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Indeed, the Microprosopus -- who is, philosophically speaking,\nquite distinct from the unmanifested eternal Logos \"one with\nthe Father,\" -- has been finally brought, by centuries of\nincessant efforts, of sophistry and paradoxes, to be considered\nas one with Jehovah, or the ONE living God (!), whereas Jehovah\nis no better than Binah, a female Sephiroth. This fact cannot\nbe too frequently impressed upon the reader.\n\n** The Microprosopus is, as just said, the Logos manifested, and\nof such there are many.\n\n*** Sephira is the Crown, KETHER, in the abstract principle only,\nas a mathematical* x *(the unknown quantity). On the plane\nof differentiated nature she is the female counterpart of Adam\nKadmon -- the first Androgyne. The Kabala teaches that the word\n\"*Fiat Lux*\"* *(*Genesis *ch. i.)\nreferred to the formation and evolution of the Sephiroth, and\nnot to light as opposed to darkness. Rabbi Simeon says: \"Oh\ncom- [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 216 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSephira-Adam-Kadmon. In its *Unity*,* *primordial\nlight is the seventh, or highest, principle, *Daivi-prakriti*,*\n*the light of the unmanifested Logos. But in its differentiation\nit becomes *Fohat*,* *or the \"Seven Sons.\"\nThe former is symbolised by the Central point in the double-Triangle;\nthe latter by the hexagon itself, or the \"six limbs\"\nof the Microprosopus the Seventh being Malkuth, the \"Bride\"\nof the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the expressions:\n\n\"*The first after the *'*One*'* is divine\nFire; the second*,* Fire and AEther; the third is composed\nof Fire*,* AEther and Water; the fourth of Fire*,*\nAEther*,* Water*,* and Air.*\"** The\nOne is not concerned with Man-bearing globes*,* but with\nthe inner invisible Spheres. *\"*The *'*First-Born*'*\nare the ***L**IFE, *the heart and pulse of\nthe Universe; the Second are its ***M**IND *or\nConsciousness*,\"****\n\nas said in the Commentary.\n\n(*c*) The second Order of Celestial Beings, those of Fire\nand AEther (corresponding to Spirit and Soul, or the Atma-Buddhi)\nwhose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely\n\"substantial.\" They are the first differentiation in\nthe Secondary Evolution or \"Creation\" -- a misleading\nword. As the name shows, they are the prototypes of the incarnating\nJivas or Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life.\nIt is through these that passes, like a pure solar beam, the ray\nwhich is furnished by them with its future vehicle, the Divine\nSoul, Buddhi. These are directly concerned with the Hosts of the\nhigher world of *our *system. From these twofold *Units\n*emanate the *threefold.*\n\nIn the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic mass, an egglike\nnucleus appears, having within itself the germ and potency of\nall the universal as well as of all terrestrial life, it is the\n\"three-fold\" just named, which differentiates. \"The\nmale aethereal\" (*Yo*) principle\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] panions, companions,\nman as an emanation was both man and woman, Adam Kadmon verily,\nand this is the sense of the words 'Let there be Light, and it\nwas Light.' And this is the two-fold man.\" (*Auszuge aus\ndem Zohar*,* *pp. 13-15.)\n\n* See next footnote. These elements of Fire, Air, etc., are not\nour compound elements.\n\n** This \"Consciousness\" has no relation to our consciousness.\nThe consciousness of the \"One manifested,\" if not absolute,\nis still unconditioned. Mahat (the Universal Mind) is the first\nproduction of the Brahma-Creator, but also of the Pradhana (undifferentiated\nmatter).\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 217 TEACHINGS CONTRASTED.\n\nascends and the female grosser or more material principle (*In*)\nis precipitated into the Universe of substance, when a separation\noccurs between the celestial and the terrestrial. From this the\nfemale, the mother, the first rudimentary objective being is born.\nIt is ethereal, without form or sex, and yet it is from this and\nthe mother that the Seven Divine Spirits are born, from whom will\nemanate *the seven creations*,* *just as in the\nCodex Nazaraeus from Karabtanos and the Mother *Spiritus *the\nseven *evilly disposed *(material) spirits are born. It\nwould be too long to give here the Japanese names, but once translated\nthey stand in this order: --\n\n(1.) The \"Invisible Celibate,\" which is the creative\nlogos of the noncreating \"father,\" or the creative potentiality\nof the latter made manifest.\n\n(2.) \"The Spirit (or the God) of the rayless depths\"\n(of Chaos); which becomes differentiated matter, or the world-stuff;\nalso the mineral realm.\n\n(3.) \"The Spirit of the Vegetable Kingdom,\" of the \"Abundant\nVegetation.\"\n\n(4.) This one is of dual nature, being at the same time \"The\nSpirit of the Earth\" and \"the Spirit of the Sands,\"\nthe former containing the potentiality of the male element, the\nlatter that of the female element, the two forming a combined\nnature.\n\nThese two were ONE; yet unconscious of being two.\n\nIn this duality were contained (*a*) the male, dark and muscular\nBeing, *Isu no gai no Kami; *and* *(*b*)*\nEku gai no Kami*,* *the female, fair and weaker or\nmore delicate Being. Then, the: --\n\n(5th and 6th.) Spirits who were androgynous or dual-sexed, and,\nfinally: --\n\n(7.) The *Seventh *Spirit, the last emanated from the \"mother,\"\nappears as the first divine human form distinctly male and female.\nIt was the seventh creation, as in the Puranas, wherein man is\nthe seventh creation of Brahma.\n\nThese,* Tsanagi-Tsanami*,* *descended into the Universe\nby the celestial Bridge (the milky way), and \"*Tsanagi*,*\n*perceiving far below a chaotic mass of cloud and water, thrust\nhis jewelled spear into the depths, and dry land appeared.\"\nThen the two separated to explore *Onokoro*,* *the\nnewly-created island-world; etc., etc. (*Omoie*)*.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 218 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSuch are the Japanese exoteric fables, the rind that conceals\nthe kernel of the same one truth of the Secret Doctrine. Turning\nback to the esoteric explanations in every cosmogony: --\n\n(*d*) The* Third *order corresponds to the *Atma-Buddhi-Manas:\n*Spirit, Soul and Intellect, and is called the \"Triads.\"\n\n(*e*) The* Fourth *are substantial Entities. This\nis the highest group among the *Rupas *(Atomic Forms*).\nIt is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They\nare called the \"Imperishable Jivas,\" and constitute,\nthrough the order below their own, the first group of the first\nseptenary** host -- the great mystery of human conscious and\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* It is worthy of notice that, while rejecting as a superstition\nof Occultism, and religion too, the theory of substantial and\ninvisible Beings called Angels, Elementals, etc. -- without, of\ncourse, having ever looked into the philosophy of these incorporeal\nEntities, or thought over them -- modern chemistry, owing to observation\nand discovery, should have unconsciously been forced to adopt\nand recognize the same ratio of progression and order in the evolution\nof chemical atoms as Occultism does, both for its Dhyanis and\nAtoms -- analogy being its first law. As seen above, the very\nfirst group of the Rupa Angels is quaternary, an element being\nadded to each in descending order. So are the atoms, adopting\nthe phraseology of chemistry, monatomic, diatomic, and tetratomic,\nprogressing downwards. Let it be remembered that Fire, Water,\nand Air, or the \"Elements of primary Creation\" so-called,\nare not the compound Elements they are on Earth, but noumenal\nhomogeneous Elements -- the Spirits thereof. Then follow the septenary\ngroups or hosts. Placed on parallel lines in a diagram with Atoms,\nthe Natures of those Beings would be seen to correspond in their\ndownward scale of progression to composite elements in a mathematically\nidentical manner, as to analogy. This refers, of course, only\nto diagrams made by the Occultists; for were the scale of Angelic\nBeings to be placed on a parallel line with the scale of the chemical\natoms of Science -- from the hypothetical Helium down to Uranium\n-- they would of course be found to differ. For these have, as\ncorrespondents on the Astral plane, only the four lowest orders\n-- the higher three principles in the atom, or rather molecule\nor chemical element, being perceptible only to the initiated Dangma's\neye. But then, if Chemistry desired to find itself on the right\npath, it would have to correct its tabular arrangement by that\nof the Occultists -- which it may refuse to do. In Esoteric Philosophy,\nevery physical particle corresponds to and depends on its higher\n*noumenon* -- the Being to whose essence it belongs; and\nabove as below, the Spiritual evolves from the Divine, the psycho-mental\nfrom the Spiritual -- tainted from its lower plane by the astral\n-- the whole animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving\non parallel lines, and drawing its attributes from above as well\nas from below.\n\n** The number seven does not imply only seven Entities, but seven\ngroups or Hosts, as explained before. The highest group, the Asuras\nborn in Brahma's first body -- [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 219 THE HIERARCHIES OF SPIRITS.\n\nintellectual Being. For the latter are the field wherein lies\nconcealed *in its privation *the germ *that will fall\ninto generation. *That germ will become the spiritual potency\nin the physical cell that guides the development of the embryo,\nand which is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties\nand all the inherent qualities in man. The Darwinian theory, however,\nof the transmission of acquired faculties, is neither taught nor\naccepted in Occultism. Evolution, in it, proceeds on quite other\nlines; the physical, according to esoteric teaching, evolving\ngradually from the spiritual, mental, and psychic. This inner\nsoul of the physical cell -- this \"spiritual plasm\"\nthat dominates the germinal plasm -- is the key that must open\none day the gates of the terra incognita of the Biologist, now\ncalled the dark mystery of Embryology. (*See text and note\ninfra.*)\n\n(*f*) The Fifth group is a very mysterious one, as it is\nconnected with the Microcosmic Pentagon, the five-pointed star\nrepresenting man. In India and Egypt these Dhyanis were connected\nwith the Crocodile, and their abode is in Capricornus. These are\nconvertible terms in Indian astrology, as this (tenth) sign of\nthe Zodiac is called *Makara*,* *loosely translated\n\"crocodile.\" The word itself is occultly interpreted\nin various ways, as will be shown further on. In Egypt the defunct\nman -- whose symbol is the pentagram or the five-pointed star,\nthe points of which represent the limbs of a man -- was shown\nemblematically transformed into a crocodile: Sebakh or Sevekh\n\"or seventh,\" as Mr. Gerald Massey says, showing it\nas having been the type of intelligence, is a dragon in reality,\nnot a crocodile. He is the \"Dragon of Wisdom\" or Manas,\nthe \"Human Soul,\" Mind, the Intelligent principle, called\nin our esoteric philosophy the \"Fifth\" principle.\n\nSays the defunct \"Osirified\" in ch. lxxxviii., \"Book\nof the Dead,\" or the *Ritual*,* *under the\nglyph of a mummiform god with a crocodile's head: --\n\n(1) \"I am the god (crocodile) presiding at the fear . . .\nat the arrival of his Soul among men. I am the god-crocodile brought\nfor destruction\" (an allusion to the destruction of divine\nspiritual purity\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] which turned into \"Night\"\n-- are septenary, *i.e.*, divided like the Pitris into\nseven classes, three of which are arupa (bodiless) and four with\nbodies. (See Vishnu Purana, Book I.) They are in fact more truly\nour *Pitris *(ancestors) than the Pitris who projected\nthe first physical men. (See Book II.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 220 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwhen man acquires the knowledge of good and evil; also to the\n\"fallen\" gods, or angels of every theogony).\n\n(2) \"I am the fish of the great Horus (as *Mankara *is\nthe \"crocodile,\" the vehicle of Varuna). I am merged\nin Sekten.\"\n\nThis last sentence gives the corroboration of, and repeats the\ndoctrine of, esoteric Buddhism, for it alludes directly to the\nfifth principle (Manas), or the most spiritual part of its essence\nrather, which merges into, is absorbed by, and made one with Atma-Buddhi\nafter the death of man. For Se-khen is the residence or *loka\n*of the god Khem (Horus-Osiris, or Father and Son), hence\nthe \"Devachan\" of Atma-Buddhi. In the Ritual of the\nDead the defunct is shown entering into Sekhem with Horus-Thot\nand \"emerging from it as pure spirit\" (lxiv., 29). Thus\nthe defunct says (v. 130): \"I see the forms of (myself, as\nvarious) men transforming eternally . . . I know this (chapter).\nHe who knows it . . . takes all kinds of living forms.\" .\n. .\n\nAnd in verse 35, addressing in magic formula that which is called,\nin Egyptian esotericism, the \"ancestral heart,\" or the\nre-incarnating principle, the permanent **E**GO,\nthe defunct says: --\n\n\"Oh my heart, my ancestral heart necessary for my transformations,\n. . . . . . do not separate thyself from me before the guardian\nof the Scales. Thou art my personality within my breast, divine\ncompanion *watching over my fleshes *(bodies). . . . .\n. .\"\n\nIt is in Sekhem that lies concealed \"the Mysterious Face,\"\nor the real man concealed under the false personality, the triple-crocodile\nof Egypt, the symbol of the higher Trinity or human Triad, *Atma*,*\nBuddhi *and* Manas.* *In all the ancient papyri the\ncrocodile is called *Sebek *(Seventh), while the water\nis the fifth principle esoterically; and, as already stated, Mr.\nGerald Massey shows that the crocodile was \"the Seventh Soul,\nthe supreme one of seven -- the Seer unseen.\" Even exoterically\n*Sekhem *is the residence of the god Khem, and Khem is\nHorus avenging the death of his father Osiris, hence punishing\nthe Sins of man when he becomes a disembodied Soul. Thus the defunct\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* One of the explanations of the real though hidden meaning of\nthis Egyptian religious glyph is easy. The crocodile is the first\nto await and meet the devouring fires of the morning sun, and\nvery soon came to personify the solar heat. When the sun arose,\nit was like the arrival on earth and among men \"of the divine\nsoul which informs the Gods.\" Hence the strange symbolism.\nThe mummy donned the head of a crocodile to show that it was a\nsoul arriving from the earth.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 221 CORRELATION OF BEINGS.\n\n\"Osirified\" became the god Khem, who \"gleans the\nfield of *Aanroo*,\"* i.e.*, he gleans either\nhis reward or punishment, as that field is the celestial locality\n(Devachan) where the defunct is given *wheat*,* *the\nfood of divine justice. The fifth group of the celestial Beings\nis supposed to contain in itself the dual attributes of both the\nspiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two poles,\nso to say, of Mahat the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature\nof man, the spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five,\nmultiplied and made into ten, connecting it with *Makara*,*\n*the 10th sign of Zodiac.\n\n(*g*)* *The sixth and seventh groups partake of\nthe lower qualities of the Quaternary. They are conscious, ethereal\nEntities, as invisible as Ether, which are shot out like the boughs\nof a tree from the first central group of the four, and shoot\nout in their turn numberless side groups, the lower of which are\nthe Nature-Spirits, or Elementals of countless kinds and varieties;\nfrom the formless and unsubstantial -- the ideal THOUGHTS of their\ncreators -- down to the Atomic, though, to human perception, invisible\norganisms. The latter are considered as the \"Spirits of Atoms\"\nfor they are the first remove (backwards) from the physical Atom\n-- sentient, if not intelligent creatures. They are all subject\nto Karma, and have to work it out through every cycle. For, as\nthe doctrine teaches, there are no such privileged beings in the\nuniverse, whether in our or in other systems, in the outer or\nthe inner worlds,* as the angels of the Western Religion and the\nJudean. A Dhyan Chohan has to become one; he cannot be born or\nappear suddenly on the plane of life as a full-blown angel. The\nCelestial Hierarchy of the present Manvantara will find itself\ntransferred in the next cycle of life into higher, superior worlds,\nand will make room for a new hierarchy, composed of the elect\nones of our mankind. Being is an endless cycle within the one\nabsolute eternity, wherein move numberless inner cycles finite\nand conditioned. Gods, created as such, would evince no personal\nmerit in being gods. Such a class of beings, perfect only by virtue\nof the special immaculate nature inherent in them, in the face\nof suffering and struggling humanity, and even of the lower creation,\nwould be the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* A world when called \"a higher world\" is not higher\nby reason of its location, but because it is superior in quality\nor essence. Yet such a world is generally understood by the profane\nas \"Heaven,\" and located above our heads.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 222 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nsymbol of an eternal injustice quite Satanic in character, an\never present crime. It is an anomaly and an impossibility in Nature.\nTherefore the \"Four\" and the \"Three\" have\nto incarnate as all other beings have. This sixth group, moreover,\nremains almost inseparable from man, who draws from it all but\nhis highest and lowest principles, or his spirit and body, the\nfive middle human principles being the very essence of those Dhyanis.*\nAlone, the Divine Ray (the Atman) proceeds directly from the One.\nWhen asked how that can be? How is it possible to conceive that\nthose \"gods,\" or angels, can be at the same time their\nown emanations and their personal selves? Is it in the same sense\nin the material world, where the son is (in one way) his father,\nbeing his blood, the bone of his bone and the flesh of his flesh?\nTo this the teachers answer \"Verily it is so.\" But one\nhas to go deep into the mystery of BEING before one can fully\ncomprehend this truth.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA VII. -- Continued.\n\n2. **T**HE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. **L**IFE\nPRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM (*of Form*,*\nSthula-sarira*,* external body*)*. ***T**HROUGH\nTHE COUNTLESS RAYS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH\nMANY BEADS (*pearls*)* *(*a*)*.*\n\n(*a*)* *This sloka expresses the conception -- a\npurely Vedantic one, as already explained elsewhere -- of a life-thread,\n*Sutratma*,* *running through successive generations.\nHow, then, can this be explained? By resorting to a simile, to\na familiar illustration, though necessarily imperfect, as all\nour available analogies must be. Before resorting to it, however,\nI would ask whether it seems *unnatural*,* *least\nof all \"supernatural,\" to any one of us, when we consider\nthat process known as the growth and development of a foetus into\na healthy baby weighing several pounds evolves from what? From\nthe segmentation of an infinitesimally small ovum and a spermatozoon;\nand afterwards we see that baby develop into a six-foot man! This\nrefers to the atomic and physical\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Paracelsus calls them the *Flagae; *the Christians, the\n\"Guardian Angels;\" the Occultist, the \"Ancestors,\nthe Pitris;\" they are the *sixfold *Dhyan Chohans,\nhaving the six spiritual Elements in the composition of their\nbodies -- in fact, men, minus the physical body.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 223 THE MYSTERY OF BEING.\n\nexpansion from the microscopically small into something very large,\nfrom the -- to the naked eye -- unseen, into the visible and objective.\nScience has provided for all this; and, I dare say, her theories,\nembryological, biological, and physiological, are correct enough\nso far as exact observation of the material goes. Nevertheless,\nthe two chief difficulties of the science of embryology -- namely,\nwhat are the forces at work in the formation of the foetus, and\nthe *cause *of \"hereditary transmission\" of likeness,\nphysical, moral or mental -- have never been properly answered;\nnor will they ever be solved till the day when scientists condescend\nto accept the Occult theories.* But if this physical pheno-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The materialists and the evolutionists of the Darwinian school\nwould be ill-advised to accept the newly worked-out theories of\nProfessor Weissmann, the author of *Beitrage zur Descendenzlehre*,*\n*with regard to one of the two mysteries of Embryology, as\nabove specified, which he seems to have solved -- as he thinks.\nFor, when it is solved, Science will have stepped over into the\ndomain of the truly occult, and stepped for ever out of the realm\nof transformation, as taught by Darwin. The two are irreconcileable,\nfrom the standpoint of materialism. Regarded from that of the\nOccultists, it solves all these mysteries. Those who are not acquainted\nwith the new discovery of Professor Weissman -- at one time a\nfervent Darwinist -- ought to hasten to repair the deficiency.\nThe German Embryologist-philosopher shows -- thus stepping over\nthe heads of the Greek Hippocrates and Aristotle, right back into\nthe teachings of the old Aryans -- one infinitesimal cell, out\nof millions of others at work in the formation of an organism,\ndetermining alone and unaided, by means of constant segmentation\nand multiplication, the correct image of the future man (or animal)\nin its physical, mental, and psychic characteristics. It is that\ncell which impresses on the face and form of the new individual\nthe features of the parents or of some distant ancestor; it is\nthat cell again which transmits to him the intellectual and mental\nidiosyncracies of his sires, and so on. This Plasm is the immortal\nportion of our bodies -- simply through the process of successive\nassimilations. Darwin's theory, viewing the embryological cell\nas an essence or the extract from all other cells, is set aside;\nit is incapable of accounting for hereditary transmission. There\nare but two ways of explaining the mystery of heredity; either\nthe substance of the germinal cell is endowed with the faculty\nof crossing the whole cycle of transformations that lead to the\nconstruction of a separate organism and then to the reproduction\nof identical germinal cells; or, *those germinal cells do not\nhave their genesis at all in the body of the individual*,*\nbut proceed directly from the ancestral germinal cell passed from\nfather to son through long generations. *It is the latter\nhypothesis that Weissmann accepted and has worked upon; and it\nis to this cell that he traces the immortal portion of man. So\nfar, so good; and when this almost correct theory is accepted,\nhow will Biologists explain the first appearance of this everlasting\ncell? Unless man \"grew\" like the \"immortal Topsy,\"\nand was not born at all, but fell from the clouds, how was that\nembryological cell born in him?\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 224 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmenon astonishes no one, except in so far as it puzzles the Embryologists,\nwhy should our intellectual and inner growth, the evolution of\nthe human-spiritual to the Divine-Spiritual, be regarded as, or\nseem, more impossible than the other? Now to the simile.\n\nComplete the physical plasm, mentioned in the last foot-note,\nthe \"Germinal Cell\" of man with all its material potentialities,\nwith the \"spiritual plasm,\" so to say, or the fluid\nthat contains the five lower principles of the six-principled\nDhyan -- and you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough\nto understand it.\n\n\"When the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of\nthe animal woman, that seed cannot germinate unless it has been\nfructified by the five virtues (the fluid of, or the emanation\nfrom the principles) of the six-fold Heavenly man. Wherefore the\nMicrocosm is represented as a Pentagon, within the Hexagon Star,\nthe \"Macrocosm.\" (\"[[*Anthropos*]],\")\na work on Occult Embryology, Book I.). Then: \"The functions\nof *Jiva *on this Earth are of a five-fold character. In\nthe mineral atom it is connected with the lowest principles of\nthe Spirits of the Earth (the six-fold Dhyanis); in the vegetable\nparticle, with their second -- the *Prana *(life); in the\nanimal, with all these plus the third and the fourth; in man,\nthe germ must receive the fruition of all the five. Otherwise\nhe will be born no higher than an animal\"; namely, a congenital\nidiot. Thus in man alone the Jiva is complete. As to his seventh\nprinciple, it is but one of the Beams of the Universal Sun. Each\nrational creature receives only the temporary loan of that which\nhas to return to its source; while his physical body is shaped\nby the lowest terrestrial lives, through physical, chemical, and\nphysiological evolution. \"The Blessed Ones have nought to\ndo with the purgations of matter.\" (Kabala, Chaldean Book\nof Numbers).\n\nIt comes to this: Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form,\nis the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris); in its qualitative\nand physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the \"Ancestors,\"\nthe lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic,\nand spiritual nature, it is indebted to a group of divine Beings,\nthe name and characteristics of which will be given in Book II.\nCollectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits;\ndistributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally\nand singly, the vehicles of some of them. In our present all-material\nFifth Race, the earthly Spirit of the\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 225 SPIRIT FALLING INTO MATTER.\n\nFourth is still strong in us; but we are approaching the time\nwhen the pendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly\nupwards, bringing Humanity back on a parallel line with the primitive\nthird Root-Race in Spirituality. During its childhood, mankind\nwas composed wholly of that Angelic Host, who were the indwelling\nSpirits that animated the monstrous and gigantic tabernacles of\nclay of the Fourth Race built by (as they are now also) and composed\nof countless myriads of lives.* This sentence will be explained\nlater on in the present Commentary. The \"tabernacles\"\nhave improved in texture and symmetry of form, growing and developing\nwith the globe that bore them; but the physical improvement took\nplace at the expense of the spiritual inner man and nature. The\nthree middle principles in earth and man became with every race\nmore material; the Soul stepping back to make room for the physical\nintellect; the essence of elements becoming the material and composite\nelements now known.\n\nMan is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the\n\"Lord God\"; but he *is *the child of the *Elohim*,*\n*so arbitrarily changed into the singular masculine gender.\nThe first Dhyanis, commissioned to \"create\" man in their\nimage, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model\nfor the Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. (See Book II.)\nMan is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of\nthe Earth, but his creators and fashioners were many. Nor can\nit be said that the \"Lord God breathed into his nostrils\nthe breath of life,\" unless that God is identified with the\n\"**O**NE **L**IFE,\" Omnipresent\nthough invisible, and unless the same operation is attributed\nto \"God\" on behalf of every *living Soul* --*\n*or* Nephesch*,* *which is the *vital *Soul,\nnot the divine Spirit or *Ruach*,* *which ensures\nto man alone a divine degree of immortality, that no animal, as\nsuch, could ever attain in this cycle of incarnation. It is the\ninadequate distinctions made by the Jews, and now by our Western\nmetaphysicians, who, not knowing of, and being unable to understand,\nhence to accept, more than a triune man -- Spirit, Soul,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Science, dimly perceiving the truth, may find Bacteria and other\ninfinitesimals in the human body, and see in them but occasional\nand abnormal visitors to which diseases are attributed. Occultism\n-- which discerns a life in every atom and molecule, whether in\na mineral or human body, in air, fire or water -- affirms that\nour whole body is built of such lives, the smallest bacteria under\nthe microscope being to them in comparative size like an elephant\nto the tiniest infusoria.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 226 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nBody -- thus confuse the \"breath of life\" with immortal\nSpirit.* This applies also directly to the Protestant theologians,\nwho, in translating verse 8 of Ch. III. in the Fourth Gospel,\nhave entirely perverted the meaning. Indeed the verse is made\nto say \"The *wind *bloweth where it listeth,\"\ninstead of \"the *Spirit *goeth where it willeth,\"\nas in the original and also in the translation of the Greek Eastern\nChurch.\n\nThus the philosophy of psychic, spiritual, and mental relations\nwith man's physical functions is in almost inextricable confusion.\nNeither the old Aryan, nor the Egyptian psychology are now properly\nunderstood. Nor can they be assimilated without accepting the\nesoteric septenary, or, at any rate, the Vedantic quinquepartite\ndivision of the human inner principles. Failing which, it will\nbe for ever impossible to understand the metaphysical and purely\npsychic and even physiological relations between the Dhyan-Chohans,\nor Angels, on the one plane, and humanity on the other. No Eastern\n(Aryan) esoteric works are so far published, but we possess the\nEgyptian papyri which speak clearly\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The learned and very philosophical author of \"New Aspects\nof Life\" would impress upon his reader that the *Nephesh\nchaiah *(living soul), according to the Hebrews, \"proceeded\nfrom, or was produced by, the infusion of the Spirit or Breath\nof Life into the quickening body of man, and was to supersede\nand take the place of that spirit in the thus constituted self,\nso that the spirit passed into, was lost sight of, and disappeared\nin the living Soul.\" The human body, he thinks, ought to\nbe viewed as a matrix in which, and from which, the Soul (which\nhe seems to place higher than the spirit) is developed -- considered\n*functionally *and from the standpoint of activity, the\nSoul stands undeniably higher in this finite and conditioned world\nof Maya -- the Soul, he says, \"is ultimately produced from\nthe animated body of man.\" Thus the author identifies \"Spirit\"\n(Atma) simply with \"the breath of life.\" The Eastern\nOccultists will demur to this statement, for it is based on the\nerroneous conception that *Prana* and* Atma *or*\nJivatma *are one and the same thing. The author supports the\nargument by showing that with the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and\neven Latins, *Ruach*,* Pneuma *and* Spiritus*\n-- with the Jews undeniably, and with the Greeks and Romans very\nprobably -- meant Wind; the Greek word *Anemos *(wind)\nand the Latin *Anima *\"Soul\" having a suspicious\nrelation.\n\nThis is very far fetched. A legitimate battle-field for deciding\nthis question is hardly to be found, since Mr. Pratt seems to\nbe a practical, matter-of-fact metaphysician, a kind of Kabalist-Positivist,\nand the Eastern metaphysicians, especially the Vedantins, are\nall Idealists. The Occultists are also of the extreme esoteric\nVedantin school, and they call the One Life (Parabrahm), the Great\nBreath and the Whirlwind; but they disconnect the seventh principle\nentirely from matter or any relation to, or connection with it.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 227 THE EGYPTIAN SYSTEM.\n\nof the seven principles or the \"Seven Souls of Man.\"*\nThe Book of the Dead gives a complete list of the \"transformations\"\nthat every defunct undergoes, while divesting himself, one by\none, of all those principles -- materialised for the sake of clearness\ninto ethereal entities or bodies. We must, moreover, remind those\nwho try to prove that the ancient Egyptians knew nothing of and\ndid not teach Reincarnation, that the \"Soul\" (the *Ego\n*or* Self*)* *of the defunct is said to be living\nin Eternity: it is immortal, \"co-eval with, and disappearing\nwith the Solar boat,\" *i.e.*, for the cycle of necessity.\nThis \"Soul\" *emerges from the Tiaou *(the realm\n*of the cause of life*)* *and joins the living on\nEarth *by* *day*,* *to return to *Tiaou\n*every night. This expresses the periodical existences of\nthe Ego. (Book of the Dead, cvxliii.)\n\nThe* shadow*,* *the astral form, is annihilated,\n\"devoured by the Uraeus\" (cxlix., 51), the* Manes\n*will be annihilated; the two twins (the 4th and 5th principles)\nwill be scattered; but the Soul-bird, \"the divine Swallow\n-- and the Uraeus of Flame\" (Manas and Atma-Buddhi) will\nlive in the eternity, for they are their mother's husbands.**\n\nLike alone produces like. The Earth gives Man his body, the gods\n(Dhyanis) his five inner principles, the psychic Shadow, of which\nthose gods are often the animating principle. **S**PIRIT\n(Atman) is one -- and indiscrete. It is not in the *Tiaou.*\n\nFor what is the *Tiaou? *The frequent allusion to it in\nthe \"Book of the Dead\" contains a mystery. *Tiaou\n*is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or\nthe infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the *concealed\nside of the moon. *The human being, in their\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Vide *in Part II., Book II., \"The Seven Souls of\nMan,\" the divisions made respectively by Messrs. Gerald Massey\nand Franz Lambert.\n\n** Another suggestive analogy between the Aryan or Brahmanical\nand the Egyptian esotericism. The former call the Pitris \"the\nlunar ancestors\" of men; and the Egyptians made of the Moon-God,\nTaht-Esmun, the first human ancestor. This \"moon-god\"\n\"expressed the Seven nature-powers that were prior to himself,\nand were summed up in him as his seven souls, of which he was\nthe manifestor as the eighth one (hence the eighth sphere). The\nseven rays of the Chaldean Heptakis or Iao, on the Gnostic stones\nindicate the same septenary of souls.\" . . . \"The first\nform of the mystical SEVEN was seen to be figured in heaven, by\nthe seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation assigned\nby the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and of the seven elemental\npowers.\" (See* The Seven Souls*,* *etc.) As\nwell known to every Hindu, this same constellation represents\nin India the Seven Rishis, and as such is called *Riksha*,*\n*and* Chitra-Sikhandinas.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 228 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nesotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery -- astronomical,\nphysiological, and psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle\nof existence and then returned to his birth-place before issuing\nfrom it again. Thus the defunct is shown arriving in the West,\nreceiving his judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the god\nHorus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical\nassimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the *Noot\n*(the celestial abyss), returning once more to Tiaou: an assimilation\nto Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits\nthe moon. Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, ch. xliii.) shows the Egyptians\ncelebrating a festival called \"The Ingress of Osiris into\nthe moon.\" In chapter xli. life is promised after death;\nand the renovation of life is placed under the patronage of Osiris-Lunus,\nbecause the moon was the symbol of life-renewals or reincarnations,\nowing to its growth, waning, dying, and reappearance every month.\nIn the *Dankmoe*,* *(iv.* *5) it is said:\n-- \"Oh, Osiris-Lunus! That renews to thee thy renewal.\"\nAnd Safekh says to Seti I. (Mariette's Abydos, plate 51), \"Thou\nrenewest thyself as the god Lunus when a babe.\" It is still\nbetter explained in a Louvre papyrus (P. Pierret, \"Etudes\nEgyptologiques\"): \"Couplings and conceptions abound\nwhen he (Osiris-Lunus) is seen in heaven on that day.\" Says\nOsiris: \"Oh, sole radiant beam of the moon! I issue from\nthe circulating multitudes (of stars) . . . . . . Open me the\nTiaou, for Osiris N. I will issue by day to do what I have to\ndo amongst the living\" (\"Book of the Dead,\" ch.\nii.), -- *i.e.*,* *to produce conceptions.\n\nOsiris was \"God manifest in generation,\" because the\nancients knew, far better than the moderns, the real occult influences\nof the lunar body upon the mysteries of conception.* Later on,\nwhen the moon became connected with female goddesses** -- with\nDiana, Isis, Artemis,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In the oldest systems we find the Moon always male. Thus Soma\nis, with the Hindus, a kind of sidereal Don Juan, a \"King,\"\nand the father, albeit illegitimate, of Buddha -- Wisdom, which\nrelates to Occult Knowledge, a wisdom gathered through a thorough\nacquaintance with lunar mysteries including those of sexual generation.\n(See \"Holy of Holies.\")\n\n** If instead of being taught in Sunday Schools useless lessons\nfrom the Bible, the armies of the ragged and the poor were taught\nAstrology -- so far, at any rate, as the occult properties of\nthe Moon and its hidden influences on generation are concerned,\nthen there would be little need to fear increase of the population\nnor to resort to the questionable literature of the Malthusians\nfor its arrest. For it is the Moon and her [[Footnote continued\non next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 229 MANY STREAMS, BUT ONE SOURCE.\n\nJuno, etc., that connection was due to a thorough knowledge of\nphysiology and female nature, physical as much as psychic. But,\nprimarily, the Sun and Moon were the only visible and, so to say,\n*tangible *[by their effects] psychic and physiological\ndeities -- the Father and the Son, while Space and air in general,\nor that expanse of Heaven called Noot by the Egyptians, was the\nconcealed Spirit or Breath of the two. These \"Father and\nSon\" were interchangeable in their functions and worked harmoniously\ntogether in their effects upon terrestrial nature and humanity;\nhence they were regarded as ONE, though TWO in personified Entities.\nThey were both males, and both had their distinct and also collaborative\nwork in the causative generation of Humanity. So much from the\nastronomical and cosmic standpoints viewed and expressed in symbolical\nlanguage -- which became in our last races theological and dogmatic.\nBut behind this veil of Cosmic and Astrological symbols, there\nwere the Occult mysteries of Anthropography and the primeval genesis\nof man. And in this, no knowledge of symbols -- or even the key\nto the *post-diluvian *symbolical language of the Jews\n-- will, or can help, save only with reference to that which was\nlaid down in national scriptures for exoteric uses; the sum of\nwhich, however cleverly veiled, was only the smallest portion\nof the real primitive history of each people, often relating,\nmoreover, -- as in the Hebrew Scriptures -- merely to the terrestrial\nhuman, not divine life of that nation. That psychic and spiritual\nelement belonged to MYSTERY and INITIATION. There were things\nnever recorded in scrolls, but, as in Central Asia, on rocks and\nin subterranean crypts.\n\nNevertheless, there was a time when the whole world was \"of\none lip and of one knowledge,\" and Man knew more of his origin\nthan he does now, and thus knew that the Sun and Moon, however\nlarge a part they do play in the constitution, growth and development\nof the human body, were not the direct causative agents of his\nappearance on Earth;\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] conjunctions that regulate\nconceptions, and every astrologer in India knows it. During the\nprevious and the present races, at least at the beginning of this\none, those who indulged in marital relations during certain lunar\nphases that made those relations sterile were regarded as sorcerers\nand sinners. But even now those sins of old, based on the Occult\nknowledge and the abuse of it, would appear preferable to the\ncrimes of to-day, which are perpetrated because of the complete\nignorance of, and disbelief in all such occult influences.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 230 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthese agents being, in truth, the living and intelligent Powers\nwhich the Occultists call Dhyan Chohans.\n\nAs to this, a very learned admirer of the Jewish Esotericism tells\nus that \"the Kabala says expressly that Elohim is a '*general\nabstraction*'*; *what we call in mathematics 'a constant\nco-efficient' or a 'general function' entering into all construction,\nnot particular; that is, by the general ratio 1 to 31415, (the\nastro-Dhyanic and) Elohistic figures.\" To this the Eastern\nOccultist replies: Quite so, it is an abstraction to our physical\nsenses. To our spiritual perceptions, however, and to our inner\nspiritual eye, the Elohim or Dhyanis are no more an abstraction\nthan our soul and spirit are to us. Reject the one and you reject\nthe other -- since that which is the *surviving Entity in us\n*is partly the direct emanation from, and partly *those\ncelestial Entities themselves. *One thing is sure; the Jews\nwere perfectly acquainted with sorcery and various maleficent\nforces; but, with the exception of some of their great prophets\nand seers like Daniel and Ezekiel (Enoch belonging to a far distant\nrace and not to any nation but to all, as a generic character),\nthey knew little of, nor would they deal with, the real divine\nOccultism, their national character being averse to anything which\nhad no direct bearing upon their own ethnical, tribal, and individual\nbenefits -- witness their own prophets, and the curses thundered\nby them against the \"stiff-necked race.\" But even the\nKabala plainly shows the direct relation between the Sephiroth,\nor Elohim, and men.\n\nTherefore, when it is proved to us that the Kabalistic identification\nof Jehovah with Binah, a female Sephiroth, has still another,\na sub-occult meaning in it, then and then only the Occultist will\nbe ready to pass the palm of perfection to the Kabalist. Until\nthen, it is asserted that, as Jehovah is in the abstract sense\nof a \"one living God,\" a single number, a metaphysical\nfigment, and a reality only when put in his proper place as an\nemanation and a Sephiroth -- we have a right to maintain that\nthe Zohar (as witnessed by the **B**OOK OF **N**UMBERS,\nat any rate), gave out originally, before the Christian Kabalists\nhad disfigured it, and still gives out the same doctrine that\nwe do; *i.e.*,* *it makes Man emanate, not from\none Celestial **M**AN, but from a Septenary group\nof Celestial men or Angels, just as in \"Pymander, the Thought\nDivine.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 231 THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE \"ONE.\"\n\n##### STANZA VII. -- Continued.\n\n(3) **W**HEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO -- THE \"THREE-FOLD\"\nAPPEARS (*a*). **T**HE THREE ARE (*linked\ninto*)* *ONE;* *AND IT IS OUR THREAD, **O**\n**L**ANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT, CALLED **S**APTAPARNA\n(*b*).\n\n(*a*) \"When the ONE becomes two, the three-fold appears\":\nto wit, when the One Eternal drops its reflection into the region\nof Manifestation, that reflection, \"the Ray,\" differentiates\nthe \"Water of Space\"; or, in the words of the \"Book\nof the Dead\"; \"Chaos ceases, through the effulgence\nof the Ray of Primordial light dissipating total darkness by the\nhelp of the great magic power of the WORD of the (Central) Sun.\"\nChaos becomes male-female, and Water, incubated through Light,\nand the \"three-fold being issues as its First-born.\"\n\"Osiris-Ptah (or RA) creates his own limbs (like Brahma)\nby creating the gods destined to personify his phases\" during\nthe Cycle (xvii., 4). The Egyptian Ra, issuing from the DEEP,\nis the Divine Universal Soul in its manifested aspect, and so\nis Narayana, the Purusha, \"*concealed in Akasa and present\nin Ether.*\"\n\nThis is the metaphysical explanation, and refers to the very beginning\nof Evolution, or, as we should rather say, of Theogony. The meaning\nof the Stanza when explained from another standpoint in its reference\nto the mystery of man and his origin, is still more difficult\nto comprehend. In order to form a clear conception of what is\nmeant by the One becoming two, and then being transformed into\nthe \"three-fold,\" the student has to make himself thoroughly\nacquainted with what we call \"Rounds.\" If he refers\nto \"Esoteric Buddhism\" -- the first attempt to sketch\nout an approximate outline of archaic Cosmogony -- he will find\nthat by a \"Round\" is meant the serial evolution of nascent\nmaterial nature, of the seven globes of our chain* with their\nmineral,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no seven\nprinciples of man nor septenary constitution of our chain were\ntaught in our earlier volume, \"Isis Unveiled.\" Though\nin that work the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many\npassages, nevertheless, in which the septenary constitution of\nboth man and chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim\nin Vol. II., page 420, it is said: \"They remain over the\nseventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it is they who, according\nto the Kabalists, formed in succession the six material worlds,\nor rather, attempts at worlds that preceded our own, which, they\nsay, is the seventh.\" Our globe is, of course, upon the diagram\nrepresenting the \"chain,\" the seventh and the lowest;\nthough, [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 232 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nvegetable, and animal kingdoms (man being there included in the\nlatter and standing at the head of it) during the whole period\nof a life-cycle. The latter would be called by the Brahmins \"a\nDay of Brahma.\" It is, in short, one revolution of the \"Wheel\"\n(our planetary chain), which is composed of seven globes (or seven\nseparate \"Wheels,\" in another sense this time). When\nevolution has run downward into matter, from planet A to planet\nG, or Z, as the Western students call it, it is one Round. In\nthe middle of the Fourth revolution, which is our present \"Round\":\n\"Evolution has reached its acme of physical development,\ncrowned its work with the perfect physical man, and, from this\npoint, begins its work spirit-ward.\" All this needs little\nrepetition, as it is well explained in \"Esoteric Buddhism.\"\nThat which was hardly touched upon, and of which the little that\nwas said has misled many, is the origin of man, and it is upon\nthis that a little more light may now be thrown, just enough to\nmake the Stanza more comprehensible, as the process will be fully\nexplained only in its legitimate place, in Book II.\n\nNow every \"Round\" (on the descending scale) is but a\nrepetition in a more concrete form of the Round which preceded\nit, as every globe -- down to our fourth sphere (the actual earth)\n-- is a grosser and more material copy of the more shadowy sphere\nwhich precedes it in their successive order, on the three higher\nplanes. (See diagram in Stanza VI. Comm. 6). On its way upwards\non the ascending arc, Evolution spiritualises and etherealises,\nso to speak, the general nature of all, bringing it on to a level\nwith the plane on which the twin globe on the opposite side is\nplaced; the result being, that when the seventh globe is reached\n(in whatever Round) the nature of everything that is evolving\nreturns to the condition it was in at its starting point -- plus,\nevery time, a new and superior degree in the states of consciousness.\nThus it becomes clear that the \"origin of man,\" so-called,\non this our present\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] as the evolution on\nthese globes is cyclic, it is the fourth in descending the arc\nof matter. And again, on page 367, Vol. II., it is written: \"In\nthe Egyptian notions, *as in those of all other faiths founded\non philosophy*,* *man was not merely . . . an union\nof soul and body; he was a trinity when spirit was added to it;\nand besides that doctrine made him consist of body, astral form,\nor shadow, the animal soul, the higher soul, and terrestrial intelligence\nand a sixth principle, etc., etc. -- the seventh -- **S**PIRIT.\"\nSo clearly are these principles mentioned, that even in the *Index*,*\n*one finds on page 683: -- \\\"Six principles of man\"\n-- the seventh being the synthesis of the six, and *not a principle\n*but a ray of the Absolute **A**LL -- in strict\ntruth.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 233 WHAT INCARNATES IN ANIMAL MAN.\n\nRound, or life-cycle on this planet, must occupy the same place\nin the same order -- save details based on local conditions and\ntime -- as in the preceding Round. Again, it must be explained\nand remembered that, as the work of each Round is said to be apportioned\nto a different group of so-called \"Creators\" or \"Architects,\"\nso is that of every globe; *i.e.*, it is under the supervision\nand guidance of special \"Builders\" and \"Watchers\"\n-- the various Dhyan-Chohans.\n\nThe group of the hierarchy which is commissioned to \"create\"*\nmen is a special group, then; yet it evolved shadowy man in this\ncycle just as a higher and still more spiritual group evolved\nhim in the Third Round. But as it is the Sixth -- on the downward\nscale of Spirituality -- the last and seventh being the terrestrial\nSpirits (elementals) which gradually form, build, and condense\nhis physical body -- this Sixth group evolves no more than the\nfuture man's shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible transparent\ncopy of themselves. It becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy\n-- the mysterious beings that preside over the constellation Capricornus,\nMakara, or \"Crocodile\" in India as in Egypt -- to inform\nthe empty and ethereal animal form and make of it the Rational\nMan. This is one of those subjects upon which very little may\nbe said to the general public. It is a MYSTERY, truly, but only\nto him who is prepared to reject the existence of intellectual\nand conscious spiritual Beings in the Universe, limiting full\nConsciousness to man alone, and that only as a \"function\nof the Brain.\" Many are those among the Spiritual Entities,\nwho have incarnated bodily in man, since the beginning of his\nappearance, and who, for all that, still exist as independently\nas they did before, in the infinitudes of Space. . . .\n\nTo put it more clearly: the invisible Entity may be bodily present\non earth without abandoning, however, its status and functions\nin the supersensuous regions. If this needs explanation, we can\ndo no better than remind the reader of like cases in Spiritualism,\nthough such cases are very rare, at least as regards the nature\nof the Entity incarnating,**\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Creation is an incorrect word to use, as no religion, not even\nthe sect of the Visishta Adwaitees in India -- one which anthropomorphises\neven Parabrahmam -- believes in creation out of *nihil *as\nChristians and Jews do, but in evolution out of preexisting materials.\n\n** The so-called \"Spirits\" that may occasionally possess\nthemselves of the bodies of mediums are not the Monads or Higher\nPrinciples of disembodied personalities. Such a \"Spirit\"\ncan only be either an Elementary, or -- a Nirmanakaya.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nor taking temporary possession of a medium. Just as certain persons\n-- men and women, reverting to parallel cases among living persons\n-- whether by virtue of a peculiar organization, or through the\npower of acquired mystic knowledge, can be seen in their \"double\"\nin one place, while the body is many miles away; so the same thing\ncan occur in the case of superior Beings.\n\nMan, philosophically considered, is, in his outward form, simply\nan animal, hardly more perfect than his pithecoid-like ancestor\nof the third round. He is a living body, not a living being, since\nthe realisation of existence, the \"Ego-Sum,\" necessitates\nself-consciousness, and an animal can only have direct consciousness,\nor instinct. This was so well understood by the Ancients that\nthe Kabalist even made of soul and body two lives, independent\nof each other.* The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethero-substantial\nenvelope, could die and man be still living on earth -- *i.e.*,*\n*the soul could free itself from and quit the tabernacle for\nvarious reasons -- such as insanity, spiritual and physical depravity,\netc.** Therefore, that which living men (Initiates)\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* On p. 340-351 (Genesis of the Soul) in the \"*New Aspects\nof Life*,\"* *the Author states the Kabalistic\nteaching: \"They held that, functionally, Spirit and Matter\nof corresponding opacity and density tended to coalesce; and that\nthe resultant created Spirits, in the disembodied state, were\nconstituted on a scale in which the differing opacities and transparencies\nof Elemental or uncreated Spirit were reproduced. And that these\nSpirits in the disembodied state attracted, appropriated, digested\nand assimilated Elemental Spirit and Elemental Matter whose condition\nwas conformed to their own.\" \"They therefore taught\nthat there was a wide difference in the condition of created Spirits;\nand that in the intimate association between the Spirit-world\nand the world of Matter, the more opaque Spirits in the disembodied\nstate were drawn towards the more dense parts of the material\nworld, and therefore tended towards the centre of the Earth, where\nthey found the conditions most suited to their state; while the\nmore transparent Spirits passed into the surrounding aura of the\nplanet, the most rarified finding their home in its satellite.\"\n\nThis relates exclusively to our Elementary Spirits, and has naught\nto do with either the Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic or Inter-Etheric\nIntelligent Forces or \"Angels\" as they are termed by\nthe Roman Church. The Jewish Kabalists, especially the practical\nOccultists who dealt with ceremonial magic, busied themselves\nsolely with the spirits of the Planets and the \"Elementals\"\nso-called. Therefore this covers only a portion of the Esoteric\nTeaching.\n\n** The possibility of the \"Soul\" (*i.e.*, the\neternal Spiritual Ego) dwelling in the unseen worlds, while its\nbody goes on living on Earth, is a pre-eminently occult doctrine,\nespecially in Chinese and Buddhist philosophy. See \"Isis\nUnveiled,\" vol. i., [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 235 DII SUNT DEMONES INVERSI.\n\ncan do, the Dhyanis, who have no physical body to hamper them,\ncan do still better. This was the belief of the Antediluvians,\nand it is fast becoming that of modern intellectual society, in\nSpiritualism, besides the Greek and Roman Churches, which teach\nthe ubiquity of their angels. The Zoroastrians regarded their\nAmshaspends as dual entities (Ferouers), applying this duality\n-- in esoteric philosophy, at any rate -- to all the spiritual\nand invisible denizens of the numberless worlds in space which\nare visible to our eye. In a note of Damascius (sixth century)\non the Chaldean oracles, we have a triple evidence of the universality\nof this doctrine, for he says: \"In these oracles the seven\nCosmocratores of the world, ('The World-Pillars,') mentioned likewise\nby St. Paul, are double -- one set being commissioned to rule\nthe superior worlds the spiritual and the sidereal, and the other\nto guide and watch over the worlds of matter.\" Such is also\nthe opinion of Jamblichus, who makes an evident distinction between\nthe archangels and the \"Archontes.\" (See \"De Mysteriis,\"\nsec. ii., ch. 3.) The above may be applied, of course, to the\ndistinction made between the degrees or orders of spiritual beings,\nand it is in this sense that the Roman Catholic Church tries to\ninterpret and teach the difference; for while the archangels are\nin her teaching divine and holy, their doubles are denounced by\nher as devils.* But the word \"ferouer\" is not to be\nunderstood in this sense, for it means simply the reverse or the\nopposite side of some attribute or quality. Thus when the Occultist\nsays that the \"Demon is the lining of God\" (evil, the\nreverse of the medal), he does not mean two separate\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] p. 602, for an illustration.\nMany are the *Soulless *men among us, for the occurrence\nis found to take place in wicked materialists as well as in persons\n\"who advance in holiness and never turn back.\" (See\nibid and also \"Isis,\" vol. ii., p. 369.)\n\n* This identity between the Spirit and its material \"double\"\n(in man it is the reverse) explains still better the confusion,\nalluded to already in this work, made in the names and individualities,\nas well as the numbers, of the Rishis and the Prajapatis; especially\nbetween those of the Satyayuga and the Mahabharatan period. It\nalso throws additional light on what the Secret Doctrine teaches\nwith regard to the Root and the Seed Manus (see Book ii. \"On\nthe primitive Manus of humanity\"). Not only those progenitors\nof our mankind, but every human being, we are taught, has its\nprototype in the Spiritual Spheres; which prototype is the highest\nessence of his seventh principle. Thus the seven Manus become\n14, the Root Manu being the Prime Cause, and the \"Seed-Manu\"\nits effect; and when the latter reach from Satyayuga (the first\nstage) to the heroic period, these Manus or Rishis become 21 in\nnumber.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 236 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nactualities, but the two aspects or facets of the same Unity.\nNow the best man living would appear, side by side with an Archangel\n-- as described in Theology -- a fiend. Hence a certain reason\nto depreciate a lower \"double,\" immersed far deeper\nin matter than its original. But there is still as little cause\nto regard them as devils, and this is precisely what the Roman\nCatholics maintain against all reason and logic.\n\n(*b*)* *The concluding sentence of this sloka shows\nhow archaic is the belief and the doctrine that man is seven-fold\nin his constitution. The thread of being which animates man and\npasses through all his personalities, or rebirths on this Earth\n(an allusion to Sutratma), the thread on which moreover all his\n\"Spirits\" are strung -- is spun from the essence of\nthe \"threefold,\" the \"fourfold\" and the \"fivefold\";\nwhich contain all the preceding. *Panchasikha*,* *agreeably\nto Bhagavata Purana (V. XX. 25-28), is one of the seven *Kumaras\n*who go to Sveta-Dvipa to worship Vishnu. We shall see further\non, what connection there is between the \"celibate\"\nand chaste sons of Brahma, who refuse \"to multiply,\"\nand terrestrial mortals. Meanwhile it is evident that \"the\nMan-Plant,\" Saptaparna, thus refers to the seven principles,\nand man is compared to the seven-leaved plant of this name* so\nsacred among Buddhists.\n\nFor further details as to Saptaparna and the importance of the\nnumber seven in occultism, as well as in symbology, the reader\nis referred to Part II., Book II., on Symbolism: Sections on \"*Saptaparna*,\"*\n*\"The Septenary in the Vedas,\" etc. etc.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The Egyptian allegory in the \"Book of the Dead\" already\nmentioned, the hymn that relates to the reward \"of the Soul,\"\nis as suggestive of our Septenary Doctrine as it is poetical.\nThe deceased is allotted a piece of land in the field of Aanroo,\nwherein the Manes, the deified shades of the dead, glean, as the\nharvest they have sown by their actions in life, the corn seven\ncubits high, which grows in a territory divided into 14 and 7\nportions. This corn is the food on which they live and prosper,\nor that will kill them, in Amenti, the realm of which the Aanroo\nfield is a domain. For, as said in the hymn, (see chap. xxxii.\n9) the deceased is either destroyed therein, or becomes pure spirit\nfor the Eternity, in consequence of the \"Seven times seventy-seven\nlives\" passed or to be passed on Earth. The idea of the corn\nreaped as the \"fruit of our actions\" is very graphic.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 237 THE IMMORTAL ROOT.\n\n##### STANZA VII. -- Continued.\n\n4. **I**T IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES, THE THREE-TONGUED\nFLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS* (*a*) . . . **T**HE\nWICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME (*their\nupper triad*)* *SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN, THEIR FLAME;\nTHE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES\nOF ALL THE RIVERS OF THE EARTH (\"*Bhumi*,\"*\nor *\"*Prithivi*\")*** *(*b*)*.*\n\n(*a*) The \"Three-tongued flame\" that never dies\nis the immortal spiritual triad -- the Atma-Buddhi and Manas --\nthe fruition of the latter assimilated by the first two after\nevery terrestrial life. The \"four wicks\" that go out\nand are extinguished, are the four lower principles, including\nthe body.\n\n\"I am the three-wicked Flame and my wicks are immortal,\"\nsays the defunct. \"I enter into the domain of Sekhem (the\nGod whose arm sows the seed of action produced by the disembodied\nsoul) and I enter the region of the Flames who have destroyed\ntheir adversaries,\" *i.e.*, got rid of the sin-creating\n\"four wicks.\" (See chap. i., vii., \"Book of the\nDead,\" and the \"Mysteries of Ro-stan.\")\n\n(*b*) Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters\nof an ocean above which one and the same moon is shining, so our\nevanescent personalities -- the illusive envelopes of the immortal\nMONAD-EGO -- twinkle and dance on the waves of Maya. They last\nand appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the moon-beams,\nonly so long as the Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on\nthe running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then\nthey disappear, the beams -- symbols of our eternal Spiritual\nEgos -- alone surviving, re-merged in, and being, as they were\nbefore, one with the Mother-Source.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The three-tongued flame of the four wicks corresponds to the\nfour unities and the three Binaries of the Sephirothal tree (see\nCommentary on Stanza VI.).\n\n** Useless to repeat again that the terms given here are Sanskrit\ntranslations; for the original terms, unknown and unheard of in\nEurope, would only puzzle the reader more, and serve no useful\npurpose.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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