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    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "slug": "18-i-symbolism-and-ideographs-303",
    "title": "I. SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303",
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    "text": "## I. SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 2, ch 1\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page 301]]\n\n##### BOOK I., PART II.\n\n###### THE\n\n### EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM\n\n#### IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.\n\n---------------------\n\n##### EXPLANATORY SECTIONS.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page 302]]\n\n##### CONTENTS.\n\n§§ PAGE.\n\n- - - - -\n\nI. -- **S**YMBOLISM AND **I**DEOGRAPHS\n... 303\n\nII. -- **M**YSTERY **L**ANGUAGE ...\n310\n\nIII. -- **P**RIMORDIAL **S**UBSTANCE\nAND **D**IVINE **T**HOUGHT ... 325\n\nIV. -- **C**HAOS, **T**HEOS, **K**OSMOS\n... 342\n\nV. -- **T**HE **H**IDDEN **D**EITY\nAND ITS **G**LYPHS ... 349\n\nVI. -- **T**HE **M**UNDANE **E**GG\n... 359\n\nVII. -- **T**HE **D**AYS AND **N**IGHTS\nOF **B**RAHMA ... 368\n\nVIII. -- **T**HE **L**OTUS AS A **U**NIVERSAL\n**S**YMBOL ... 379\n\nIX. -- **D**EUS **L**UNUS ... 386\n\nX. -- **T**REE AND **S**ERPENT AND **C**ROCODILE\n**W**ORSHIP ... 403\n\nXI. -- **D**EMON EST **D**EUS **I**NVERSUS\n... 411\n\nXII. -- **T**HEOGONY OF THE **C**REATIVE\n**G**ODS ... 424\n\nXIII. -- **T**HE **S**EVEN **C**REATIONS\n... 445\n\nXIV. -- **T**HE **F**OUR **E**LEMENTS\nOF THE **A**NCIENTS ... 460\n\nXV. -- **O**N **K**WAN-**S**HI\n**Y**IN AND **K**WAN-**Y**IN\n... 470\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page 303]]\n\n##### BOOK I. -- PART II.\n\n###### (SECRET DOCTRINE.)\n§ I.\nSYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS.\n\n\"A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer\nor clearer revelation of the God-like. Through all there glimmers\nsomething of a divine idea; nay, the highest ensign that men ever\nmet and embraced under the cross itself, had no meaning, save\nan accidental extrinsic one.\" **C**ARLYLE.\n\n**T**HE study of the hidden meaning in every religious\nand profane legend, of whatsoever nation, large or small -- pre-eminently\nthe traditions of the East -- has occupied the greater portion\nof the present writer's life. She is one of those who feel convinced\nthat no mythological story, no traditional event in the folk-lore\nof a people has ever been, at any time, pure fiction, but that\nevery one of such narratives has an actual, historical lining\nto it. In this the writer disagrees with those symbologists, however\ngreat their reputation, who find in every myth nothing save additional\nproofs of the superstitious bent of mind of the ancients, and\nbelieve that all mythologies sprung from and are built upon *solar\nmyths. *Such superficial thinkers were admirably disposed\nof by Mr. Gerald Massey, the poet and Egyptologist, in a lecture\non \"Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern.\" His pointed criticism\nis worthy of reproduction in this part of this work, as it echoes\nso well our own feelings, expressed openly so far back as 1875,\nwhen \"Isis Unveiled\" was written.\n\n\"For thirty years past Professor Max Muller has been teaching\nin his books and lectures, in the *Times *and various magazines,\nfrom the platform of the Royal Institution, the pulpit of Westminster\nAbbey, and his chair at Oxford, that mythology is a disease of\nlanguage, and that the ancient symbolism was a result of something\nlike a primitive aberration.\n\n\"'We know,' says Renouf, echoing Max Muller, in his Hibbert\nlectures, 'we know that mythology *is* the disease which\nsprings up at a peculiar stage of human culture.' Such is the\nshallow explanation of the non-evolutionists, and such explanations\nare still accepted by the British public, that gets its think-\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 304 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ning done by proxy. Professor Max Muller, Cox, Gubernatis, and\nother propounders of the Solar Mythos, have portrayed the primitive\nmyth-maker for us as a sort of Germanised-Hindu metaphysician,\nprojecting his own shadow on a mental mist, and talking ingeniously\nconcerning smoke, or, at least, *cloud; *the sky overhead\nbecoming like the dome of dreamland, scribbled over with the imagery\nof aboriginal nightmares! They conceive the early man in their\nown likeness, and look upon him as perversely prone to self-mystification,\nor, as Fontenelle has it, 'subject to beholding things that are\nnot there.' They have misrepresented primitive or archaic man\nas having been idiotically misled from the first by an active\nbut untutored imagination into believing all sorts of fallacies,\nwhich were directly and constantly contradicted by his own daily\nexperience; a fool of fancy in the midst of those grim realities\nthat were grinding his experience into him, like the grinding\nicebergs making their imprints upon the rocks submerged beneath\nthe sea. It remains to be said, and will one day be acknowledged,\nthat these accepted teachers have been no nearer to the beginnings\nof mythology and language than Burns' poet Willie had been near\nto Pegasus. My reply is, 'Tis but a dream of the metaphysical\ntheorist that mythology was a disease of language, or of anything\nelse except his own brain. The origin and meaning of mythology\nhave been missed altogether by these solarites and weather-mongers!\nMythology was a primitive mode of *thinking *the early thought.\nIt was founded on natural facts, and is still verifiable in phenomena.\nThere is nothing insane, nothing irrational in it, when considered\nin the light of evolution, and when its mode of expression by\nsign-language is thoroughly understood. The insanity lies in mistaking\nit for human history or Divine Revelation.* Mythology is the repository\nof man's most ancient science, and what concerns us chiefly is\nthis -- when truly interpreted once more, it is destined to be\nthe death of those false theologies to which it has unwittingly\ngiven birth.** In modern phraseology a statement is sometimes\nsaid to be mythical in proportion to its being untrue; but the\nancient mythology was not a system or mode of falsifying in that\nsense. Its fables were the means of conveying facts; they were\nneither forgeries nor fictions. . . . For example, when the Egyptians\nportrayed the moon as a *Cat*,* *they were not ignorant\nenough to suppose that the moon was a cat; nor did their wandering\nfancies see any likeness in the moon to a cat; nor was a cat-myth\nany *mere expansion of verbal metaphor; *nor had they any\nintention of making puzzles or riddles. . . . They had observed\nthe simple fact that the cat saw in the dark, and that her eyes\nbecame full-orbed, and grew most luminous by night. The moon was\nthe *seer *by night in heaven, and the cat was its equivalent\non the earth; and so the familiar cat was adopted as a representative,\na natural sign, a living pictograph of the lunar orb. . . . And\nso it followed that the sun which saw down in the under-world\nat night could also be called the cat, as it was, because *it\nalso saw *in the dark. The name of the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* As far as *divine revelation *is concerned, we agree.\nNot so with regard to \"*human history.*\"*\n*. . . For there is \"history\" in most of the allegories\nand \"myths\" of India, and events, real actual events,\nare concealed under them.\n\n** When the \"false theologies\" disappear, then true\nprehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the\nmythology of the Aryans -- ancient Hindoos, and even the pre-Homeric\nHellenes.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 305 EMBLEM AND SYMBOL DIFFER.\n\ncat in Egyptian is *mau*, which denotes the *seer*,\nfrom* mau*, to see. One writer on mythology asserts that\nthe Egyptians 'imagined a great cat behind the sun, which is the\npupil of the cat's eye.' But this imagining is all modern. It\nis the Mullerite stock in trade. The moon *as cat *was the\neye of the sun,* because* *it reflected the solar light*,*\n*and because the eye gives back image in its mirror. In the\nform of the goddess Pasht, the cat keeps watch for the sun, with\nher paw holding down and bruising the head of the serpent of darkness,\ncalled his eternal enemy. . . .\"\n\nThis is a very correct exposition of the lunar-mythos from its\nastronomical aspect. Selenography, however, is the least esoteric\nof the divisions of lunar Symbology. To master thoroughly -- if\none is permitted to coin a new word -- *Selenognosis*,*\n*one must become proficient in more than its astronomical\nmeaning. The moon (*vide* § VII. * Deus Lunus*)*\n*is intimately related to the Earth, as shown in Stanza VI.\nof Book I., and is more directly concerned with all the mysteries\nof our globe than is even Venus-Lucifer, the occult sister and\n*alter-ego *of the Earth.\n\nThe untiring researches of Western, and especially German, symbologists,\nduring the last and the present centuries, have brought every\nOccultist and most unprejudiced persons to see that without the\nhelp of symbology (with its seven departments, of which the moderns\nknow nothing) no ancient Scripture can ever be correctly understood.\nSymbology must be studied from every one of its aspects, for each\nnation had its own peculiar methods of expression. In short, no\nEgyptian papyrus, no Indian tolla, no Assyrian tile, or Hebrew\nscroll, should be read and accepted *literally.*\n\nThis every scholar now knows. The able lectures of Mr. G. Massey\nalone are sufficient in themselves to convince any *fair-minded\n*Christian that to accept the dead-letter of the Bible is\nequivalent to falling into a grosser error and superstition than\nany hitherto evolved by the brain of the savage South Sea Islander.\nBut the point to which even the most truth-loving and truth-searching\nOrientalists -- whether Aryanists or Egyptologists -- seem to\nremain blind, is the fact that every symbol in papyrus or *olla\n*is a many-faced diamond, each of whose facets not merely\nbears several interpretations, but relates likewise to several\nsciences. This is instanced in the just quoted interpretation\nof the moon symbolized by the cat -- an example of sidero-terrestrial\nimagery; the moon bearing many other meanings besides this with\nother nations.\n\nAs a learned Mason and Theosophist, the late Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie,\nhas shown in his *Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia*,* *there\nis a great difference between *emblem *and* symbol.\n*The former \"comprises a larger series of thoughts than\na symbol, which may be said rather to illustrate some single special\nidea.\" Hence, the symbols (say lunar, or solar) of several\ncountries, each illustrating such a special idea, or series of\nideas, form collectively an esoteric emblem. The latter is \"a\nconcrete visible\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 306 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\npicture or sign representing principles, or a series of principles,\n*recognizable by those who have received certain instructions*\"*\n*(initiates). To put it still plainer, an emblem is *usually\na series of graphic pictures *viewed and explained allegorically,\nand unfolding an idea in panoramic views, one after the other.\nThus the Puranas are written emblems. So are the Mosaic and Christian\nTestaments, or the Bible, and all other exoteric Scriptures. As\nthe same authority shows: --\n\n\"All esoteric Societies have made use of emblems and symbols,\nsuch as the Pythagorean Society, the Eleusinian, the Hermetic\nBrethren of Egypt, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. Many\nof these emblems it is not proper to divulge to the general eye,\nand *a very minute difference may make the emblem or symbol\n*differ widely in its meaning. The magical sigillae, being\nfounded on certain principles of numbers, partake of this character,\nand although monstrous or ridiculous in the eyes of the uninstructed,\nconvey a whole body of doctrine to those who have been trained\nto recognise them.\"\n\nThe above enumerated societies are all comparatively modern, none\ndating back earlier than the middle ages. How much more proper,\nthen, that the students of the oldest Archaic School should be\ncareful not to divulge secrets of far more importance to humanity\n(in the sense of being dangerous in the hands of the latter) than\nany of the so-called \"Masonic Secrets,\" which have now\nbecome, as the French say, those of \"Polichinelle!\"\nBut this restriction can apply only to the psychological or rather\npsycho-physiological and Cosmical significance of symbol and emblem,\nand even to that only partially. An adept must refuse to impart\nthe conditions and means that lead to a correlation of elements,\nwhether psychic or physical, that may produce a hurtful result\nas well as a beneficent one. But he is ever ready to impart to\nthe earnest student the secret of the ancient thought in anything\nthat regards history concealed under mythological symbolism, and\nthus to furnish a few more land-marks towards a retrospective\nview of the past, as containing useful information with regard\nto the origin of man, the evolution of the races and geognosy;\nyet it is the crying complaint of to-day, not only among theosophists,\nbut also among the few profane interested in the subject. \"Why\ndo not the adepts reveal that which they know?\" To this,\none might answer, \"Why should they, since one knows beforehand\nthat no man of science will accept, even as an hypothesis, let\nalone as a theory or axiom, the facts imparted. Have you so much\nas accepted or believed in the A B C of the Occult philosophy\ncontained in the *Theosophist*,* *\"Esoteric\nBuddhism,\" and other works and periodicals? Has not even\nthe little which was given, been ridiculed and derided, and made\nto face the \"animal\" and \"ape theory\" of Huxley\n-- Haeckel, on one hand, and the rib of Adam and the apple on\nthe other? Notwithstanding such an unenviable prospect, a mass\nof facts is given in the present work. And now the origin of man,\nthe evolution of the globe and\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 307 MAGIC POTENCY OF SOUND.\n\nthe races, human and animal, are as fully treated here as the\nwriter is able to treat them.\n\nThe proofs brought forward in corroboration of the old teachings\nare scattered widely throughout the old scriptures of ancient\ncivilizations. The Puranas, the Zendavesta, and the old classics\nare full of them; but no one has ever gone to the trouble of collecting\nand collating together those facts. The reason for this is, that\nall such events were recorded symbolically; and that the best\nscholars, the most acute minds, among our Aryanists and Egyptologists,\nhave been too often darkened by one or another preconception;\nstill oftener, by one-sided views of the secret meaning. Yet even\na parable is a spoken symbol: a fiction or a fable, as some think;\nan allegorical representation, we say, of life-realities, events,\nand facts. And, as a moral was ever drawn from a parable, that\nmoral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so an historical,\nreal event was deduced -- by those versed in the hieratic sciences\n-- from certain emblems and symbols recorded in the ancient archives\nof the temples. The religious and esoteric history of every nation\nwas embedded in symbols; it was never expressed in so many words.\nAll the thoughts and emotions, all the learning and knowledge,\nrevealed and acquired, of the early races, found their pictorial\nexpression in allegory and parable. Why? Because *the spoken\nword has a potency unknown to*,* unsuspected and disbelieved\nin*,* *by the modern \"sages.\" Because sound\nand rhythm are closely related to the four Elements of the Ancients;\nand because such or another vibration in the air is sure to awaken\ncorresponding powers, union with which produces good or bad results,\nas the case may be. No student was ever allowed to recite historical,\nreligious, or any real events in so many unmistakable words, lest\nthe powers connected with the event should be once more attracted.\nSuch events were narrated only during the Initiation, and every\nstudent had to record them in corresponding symbols, drawn out\nof his own mind and examined later by his master, before they\nwere finally accepted. Thus was created in time the Chinese Alphabet,\nas, before that, the hieratic symbols were fixed upon in old Egypt.\nIn the Chinese language, the alphabet of which may be read in\nany language,* and which is only a little less ancient than the\nEgyptian alphabet of Thoth, every word has its corresponding symbol\nconveying the word needed in a pictorial form. The language possesses\nmany thousands of such symbol letters, or logograms, each meaning\na whole word; for letters proper, or an alphabet, do not exist\nin the Chinese language any more than they did in the Egyptian\ntill a far later period.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Thus, a Japanese who does not understand one word of Chinese,\nmeeting with a Chinaman who has never heard the language of the\nformer, will communicate in writing with him, and they will understand\neach other perfectly -- because the writing is symbolical.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThe explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted,\nas Book II., which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult\nto understand without a preparatory acquaintance with the metaphysical\nsymbols at least.\n\nNor would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism\nwithout giving due honour to one who has rendered it the greatest\nservice in this century, by discovering the chief key to ancient\nHebrew symbology, interwoven strongly with metrology, one of the\nkeys to the once universal mystery language. Mr. Ralston Skinner,\nof Cincinnati, the author of \"The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery\nand the Source of Measures\" has our thanks. A mystic and\na Kabalist by nature, he has laboured for many years in this direction,\nand his efforts were certainly crowned with great success. In\nhis own words: --\n\n\"The writer is quite certain that there was an ancient language\nwhich modernly and up to this time appears to have been lost,\nthe vestiges of which, however, abundantly exist. . . . The author\ndiscovered that this (integral ratio in numbers of diameter to\ncircumference of a circle) geometrical ratio was the very ancient,\nand probably the divine origin of linear measures. . . . It appears\nalmost proven that the same system of geometry, numbers, ratio,\nand measures were known and made use of on the continent of North\nAmerica, even prior to the knowledge of the same by the descending\nSemites. . . . .\"\n\n\"The peculiarity of this language was that it could be contained\nin another, concealed and not to be perceived, save through the\nhelp of special instruction; letters and syllabic signs possessing\nat the same time the powers or meaning of numbers, of geometrical\nshapes, pictures, or ideographs and symbols, the designed scope\nof which would be determinatively helped out by parables in the\nshape of narratives or parts of narratives; while also it could\nbe set forth separately, independently, and variously, by pictures,\nin stone work, or in earth construction.\"\n\n\"To clear up an ambiguity as to the term language: Primarily\nthe word means the expression of ideas by human speech; but, secondarily,\nit may mean the expression of ideas by any other instrumentality.\nThis old language is so composed in the Hebrew text, that by the\nuse of the written characters, which will be the language first\ndefined, a distinctly separated series of ideas may be intentionally\ncommunicated, other than those ideas expressed by the reading\nof the sound signs. This secondary language sets forth, under\na veil, series of ideas, copies in imagination of things sensible,\nwhich may be pictured, and of things which may be classed as real\nwithout being sensible; as, for instance, the number 9 may be\ntaken as a reality, though it has no sensible existence, so also\na revolution of the moon, as separate from the moon itself by\nwhich that revolution has been made, may be taken as giving rise\nto, or causing a real idea, though such a revolution has no substance.\nThis idea-language may consist of symbols restricted to arbitrary\nterms and signs, having a very limited range of conceptions, and\nquite valueless, or it may be a reading of nature in some of her\nmanifestations of a value almost immeasurable, as regards human\ncivilization. A picture of something natural may give rise to\nideas of co-ordina-\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 309 MYSTERY LANGUAGE.\n\ntive subject-matter, radiating out in various and even opposing\ndirections, like the spokes of a wheel, and producing natural\nrealities in departments very foreign to the apparent tendency\nof the reading of the first or starting picture. Notion may give\nrise to connected notion, but if it does, then, however apparently\nincongruous, all resulting ideas must spring from the original\npicture and be harmonically connected, or related. . . . Thus\nwith a pictured idea radical enough, the imagination of the Cosmos\nitself even in its details of construction might result. Such\na use of ordinary language is now obsolete, but it has become\na question with the writer whether at one time, far back in the\npast, it, or such, was not the language of the world and of universal\nuse, possessed, however, as it became more and more moulded into\nits arcane forms, by a select class or caste. By this I mean that\nthe popular tongue or vernacular commenced even in its origin\nto be made use of as the vehicle of this peculiar mode of conveying\nideas. Of this the evidences are very strong; and, indeed, it\nwould seem that in the history of the human race there happened,\nfrom causes which at present, at any rate, we cannot trace, a\nlapse or loss from an original perfect language and a perfect\nsystem of science -- shall we say perfect because they were of\ndivine origin and importation?\"\n\n\"Divine origin\" does not mean here a revelation from\nan anthropomorphic god on a mount amidst thunder and lightning;\nbut, as we understand it, a language and a system of science imparted\nto the early mankind by a more advanced *mankind*,*\n*so much higher as to be *divine *in the sight of that\ninfant humanity. By a \"mankind,\" in short, from other\nspheres; an idea which contains nothing supernatural in it, but\nthe acceptance or rejection of which depends upon the degree of\nconceit and arrogance in the mind of him to whom it is stated.\nFor, if the professors of modern knowledge would only confess\nthat, though they know nothing of the future of the disembodied\nman -- or rather will accept nothing -- yet this future may be\npregnant with surprises and unexpected revelations to them, once\ntheir Egos are rid of their gross bodies -- then materialistic\nunbelief would have fewer chances than it has. Who of them knows,\nor can tell, what may happen when once the life cycle of this\nglobe is run down and our mother earth herself falls into her\nlast sleep? Who is bold enough to say that the *divine Egos\n*of* *our mankind -- at least the elect out of the\nmultitudes passing on to other spheres -- *will not become\nin their turn *the \"divine\" instructors of a new\nmankind generated by them on a new globe, called to life and activity\nby the disembodied \"principles\" of our Earth? (See Stanza\nVI., Book I., Part 1.) All this may have been the experience of\nthe **P**AST, and these strange records lie embedded in the\n\"Mystery language\" of the prehistoric ages, the language\nnow called **S**YMBOLISM.\n\n--------------\n\nNext Chapter\n\nContents",
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