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    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "num": 25,
    "slug": "27-x-tree-and-serpent-and-crocodile-worship-403",
    "title": "X. TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 4122,
    "text": "## X. TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 2, ch 10\n\n###### The\nSecret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 403 IDENTITY OF TYPOLOGY.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n##### § X.\nTREE, SERPENT, AND CROCODILE WORSHIP.\n\n\"Object of horror or of adoration, men have for the serpent\nan implacable hatred, or prostrate themselves before its genius.\nLie calls it, Prudence claims it, Envy carries it in its heart,\nand Eloquence on its caduceus. In hell it arms the whip of the\nFuries; in heaven Eternity makes of it its symbol.\"\n\nDE CHATEAUBRIAND.\n\n**T**HE Ophites asserted that there were several\nkinds of genii, from god to man; that the relative superiority\nof these was ruled by the degree\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 404 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nof light that was accorded to each; and they maintained that the\nserpent had to be constantly called upon and to be thanked for\nthe signal service it had rendered humanity. For it taught Adam\nthat if he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and\nevil, he would raise his being immensely by the learning and wisdom\nhe would thus acquire. Such was the exoteric reason given.\n\nIt is easy to see whence the primal idea of this dual, Janus-like\ncharacter of the Serpent: the good and the bad. This symbol is\none of the most ancient, because the reptile preceded the bird,\nand the bird the mammal. Thence the belief, or rather the superstition,\nof the savage tribes who think that the souls of their ancestors\nlive under this form, and the general association of the Serpent\nwith the tree. The legends about the various things it represents\nare numberless; but, as most of them are allegorical, they have\nnow passed into the class of fables based on ignorance and dark\nsuperstition. For instance, when Philostratus narrates that the\nnatives of India and Arabia fed on the heart and liver of serpents\nin order to learn the language of all the animals, the serpent\nbeing credited with that faculty, he certainly never meant his\nwords to be accepted literally. (See *De Vita Apollonii*,*\n*lib.* *1, c. xiv.) As will be found more than once\nas we proceed, the \"Serpent\" and \"Dragon\"\nwere the names given to the \"Wise Ones,\" the initiated\nadepts of olden times. It was their wisdom and their learning\nthat were devoured or assimilated by their followers, whence the\nallegory. When the Scandinavian Sigurd is fabled to have roasted\nthe heart of Fafnir, the Dragon, whom he had slain, becoming thereby\nthe wisest of men, it meant the same thing. Sigurd had become\nlearned in the runes and magical charms; he had received the \"word\"\nfrom an initiate of that name, or from a sorcerer, after which\nthe latter died, as many do, after \"passing the word.\"\nEpiphanius lets out a secret of the Gnostics while trying to expose\ntheir *heresies. *The Gnostic Ophites, he says, had a reason\nfor honouring the Serpent: *it was because he taught the primeval\nmen the Mysteries *(*Adv. Haeres. *37). Verily so;\nbut they did not have Adam and Eve in the garden in their minds\nwhen teaching this dogma, but simply that which is stated above.\nThe *Nagas *of the Hindu and Tibetan adepts were human\n*Nagas *(Serpents), not reptiles. Moreover, the Serpent\nhas ever been the type of consecutive or serial rejuvenation,\nof **I**MMORTALITY and **T**IME.\n\nThe numerous and extremely interesting readings, the interpretations\nand facts about Serpent worship, given in \"The Natural Genesis,\"\nare very ingenious and scientifically correct. But they are far\nfrom covering the *whole *of the meanings implied. They\ndivulge only the astronomical and physiological mysteries, with\nthe addition of some cosmic phenomena. On the lowest plane of\nmateriality the Serpent was, no doubt,\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 405 THE DEGRADATION OF THE SYMBOL.\n\n\"the great mystery in the mysteries,\" and was, very\nlikely, \"adopted as a type of feminine pubescence, on account\nof its sloughing and self-renewal.\" It was so, however, only\nwith regard to mysteries concerning terrestrial *animal *life,\nfor as symbol of \"*reclothing *and rebirth in the\n(universal) mysteries\" its \"*final phase*\"***\n-- or* *shall we rather say its incipient and culminating\nphases -- they were not of this plane. They were generated in\nthe pure realm of ideal light, and having accomplished the round\nof the whole cycle of adaptations and symbolism, the \"mysteries\"\nreturned from whence they had come -- into the essence of *immaterial\n*causality. They belonged to the highest gnosis. And surely\nthis could have never obtained its name and fame solely on account\nof its penetration into physiological and especially feminine\nfunctions!\n\nAs a symbol, the Serpent had as many aspects and occult meanings\nas the Tree itself; the \"Tree of Life,\" with which it\nwas emblematically and almost indissolubly connected. Whether\nviewed as a metaphysical or a physical symbol, the Tree and Serpent,\njointly, or separately, have never been so degraded by antiquity\nas they are now, in this our age of the breaking of idols, not\nfor truth's sake, but to glorify the more gross matter. The revelations\nand interpretations in \"The Rivers of Life\" would have\nastounded the worshippers of the Tree and Serpent in the days\nof archaic Chaldean and Egyptian wisdom; and even the early Saivas\nwould have recoiled in horror at the theories and suggestions\nof the author of the said work. \"The notion of Payne Knight\nand Inman that the cross or Tau is simply a copy of the male organs\nin a triadic form is radically false,\" writes Mr. G. Massey,\nwho proves what he says. But this is a statement that could be\nas justly applied to almost all the modern interpretations of\nancient symbols. \"The Natural Genesis,\" a monumental\nwork of research and thought, the most complete on that subject\nthat has ever been published, covering as it does a wider field,\nand explaining much more than all the symbologists who have hitherto\nwritten, does not yet go beyond the \"psycho-theistic\"\nstage of ancient thought. Nor were Payne Knight and Inman altogether\nwrong; except in entirely failing to see that their interpretations\nof the \"Tree of Life,\" as the cross and phallus, fitted\nthe symbol, and approximated it, only on the lowest and last stage\nof the evolutionary development of the idea of the GIVER OF LIFE.\nIt was the last and the grossest physical transformation of nature,\nin animal, insect, bird, and even plant; for biune, creative magnetism,\nin the form of the attraction of the contraries, or sexual polarization,\nacts in the constitution of reptile and bird as it does in that\nof man. Moreover, the modern symbologists and Orientalists --\nfrom first to last --\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The *Natural Genesis*,* *by Gerald Massey, Vol.\n1, p. 340.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 406 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nbeing ignorant of the real mysteries revealed by occultism, can\nnecessarily see but this last stage. If told that this mode of\nprocreation, which the whole world of being has now in common\non this earth, is but a passing phase, a physical means of furnishing\nthe conditions to, and producing the phenomena of life which will\nalter with this, and disappear with the next Root-Race -- they\nwould laugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But\nthe most learned Occultists assert this because *they know\n*it. The universe of living beings, of all those which procreate\ntheir species, is the living witness to the various modes of procreation\nin the evolution of animal and human species and races; and the\nnaturalist ought to sense this truth intuitionally, even though\nhe is yet unable to demonstrate it. And how could he, indeed,\nwith the present modes of thought! The landmarks of the archaic\nhistory of the past are few and scarce, and those that men of\nscience come across are mistaken for finger-posts of our little\nera. Even so-called \"universal\" (?) history embraces\nbut a tiny field in the almost boundless space of the unexplored\nregions of our latest, fifth Root-Race. Hence, every fresh sign-post,\nevery new glyph of the hoary Past that is discovered, is added\nto the old stock of information, to be interpreted on the same\nlines of pre-existing conceptions, and without any reference to\nthe special cycle of thought which that particular glyph may belong\nto. How can Truth ever come to light if this method is never changed!\n\nThus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of\nImmortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly.\nThe tree *was reversed*,* *and its roots were generated\nin Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being. Its\ntrunk grew and developed, crossing the planes of Pleroma, it shot\nout crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly\ndifferentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the\nterrestrial plane. Thus, the Asvattha, tree of Life and Being,\nwhose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the Bhagavatgita\nto grow with its roots above and its branches below (ch. xv.).\nThe roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the LOGOS;\nbut one has to go beyond those roots to *unite oneself with\nKrishna*,* *who, says Arjuna (**XI**.), is \"greater\nthan Brahman, and First Cause . . . the indestructible, that which\nis, that which is not, and what is beyond them.\" Its boughs\nare Hiranyagharba (Brahma or Brahman in his highest manifestations,\nsay Sridhara and Madhusudana), the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas.\nThe Vedas are its leaves. He only who goes *beyond *the\nroots shall never return, *i.e.*, shall reincarnate no\nmore during this \"age\" of Brahma.\n\nIt is only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud\nof the garden of Eden, of our Adamic race, that this Tree got\nsoiled by the contact and lost its pristine purity; and that the\nSerpent of\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 407 THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGONS.\n\nEternity -- the heaven-born **L**OGOS -- was finally\ndegraded. In days of old -- of the *divine Dynasties *on\nEarth -- the now dreaded Reptile was regarded as the first beam\nof light that radiated from the abyss of divine Mystery. Various\nwere the forms which it was made to assume, and numerous the natural\nsymbols adapted to it, as it crossed aeons of Time: as from Infinite\nTime itself -- *Kala* --* *it fell into the space\nand time evolved out of human speculation. These forms were Cosmic\nand astronomical, theistic and pantheistic, abstract and concrete.\nThey became in turn the Polar Dragon and the Southern Cross, the\n*Alpha Draconis *of the Pyramid, and the Hindu-Buddhist\nDragon, which ever threatens, yet never swallows the Sun during\nits eclipses. Till then, the Tree remained ever green, for it\nwas sprinkled by the waters of life; the great Dragon, ever divine,\nso long as it was kept within the precincts of the sidereal fields.\nBut the tree grew and its lower boughs touched at last the infernal\nregions -- our Earth. Then the great serpent Nidhogg -- he who\ndevours the corpses of the evil-doers in the \"Hall of Misery\"\n(human life), so soon as they are plunged into \"Hwergelmir,\"\nthe roaring cauldron (of human passions) -- gnawed the World-tree.\nThe worms of materiality covered the once healthy and mighty roots,\nand are now ascending higher and higher along the trunk; while\nthe Midgard-snake coiled at the bottom of the Seas, encircles\nthe Earth, and, through its venomous breath, makes her powerless\nto defend herself.\n\nThey are all seven-headed, the dragons and serpents of antiquity\n-- \"one head for each race, and every head with seven hairs\non it,\" as the allegory has it. Aye, from Ananta, the Serpent\nof Eternity which carries Vishnu through the Manvantara, from\nthe original primordial Sesha, whose seven heads become \"one\nthousand heads\" in the Puranic fancy, down to the seven-headed\nAkkadian Serpent. This typifies the Seven principles throughout\nnature and man; the highest or *middle *head being the\nseventh. It is not of the Mosaic, Jewish Sabbath that Philo speaks\nin his *Creation of the World*,* *when saying that\nthe world was completed \"according to the perfect nature\nof number 6.\" For, \"*when that reason *(*nous*)*\nwhich is holy in accordance with the number seven*,* has\nentered the soul *(rather the living body), the number six\nis thus arrested, and all the mortal things which that number\nmakes.\" And again: \"Number 7 is the festival day of\nall the earth, the *birthday of the world. *I know not\nwhether any one would be able to celebrate the number 7 in adequate\nterms.\" . . . (Par. pp. 30 and 419). The author of *The\nNatural Genesis *thinks that \"the Septenary of Stars\nseen in the great bear (the *Septarshis*)* *and\nseven-headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic\nseven of time above. The goddess of the seven stars,\" he\nadds --\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 408 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n\"Was the mother of time, as Kep; whence Kepti and Sebti for\nthe two times and number seven. So this is the star of the Seven\nby name. Sevekt (Kronos), the Son of the goddess, has the name\nof the seven or seventh. So has Sefekh Abu who builds the house\non high, as Wisdom (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars. . .\nThe primary Kronotypes were seven, and thus the beginning of time\nin heaven is based on the number and the name of seven, on account\nof the starry demonstrators. The seven stars as they turned round\nannually kept pointing, as it were, with the forefinger of the\nright hand, and describing a circle in the upper and lower heaven.*\nThe number seven naturally suggested a measure by seven, that\nled to what may be termed *Sevening,* and to the marking\nand mapping out of the circle in seven corresponding divisions\nwhich were assigned to the seven great constellations; and thus\nwas formed the celestial heptanomis of Egypt in the heavens. .\n. . When the stellar heptanomis was broken up and divided into\nfour quarters, it was multiplied by four, and the twenty-eight\nsigns took the place of the primary seven constellations, the\nlunar zodiac of twenty-eight days being the registered result.**\n. . . In the Chinese arrangement the four sevens are given to\nfour genii that preside over the four cardinal points. . . .\"\n(In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism the genii are represented\nby four Dragons -- the \"Maharajahs\" of the Stanzas.)\n\"The seven Northern constellations make up the Black Warrior;\nthe seven Eastern (Chinese autumn) constitute the White Tiger;\nthe seven Southern are the Vermilion Bird; and the seven Western\n(called Vernal) are the Azure Dragon. Each of these four Spirits\npresides over its heptanomis during one lunar week. The genetive\nof the first heptanomis (Typhon of the Seven Stars) now took a\nlunar character; . . . in this phase we find the goddess Sefekh,\nwhose name signifies number 7, is the feminine word, or *logos\n*in place of the mother of Time, who was the earlier *Word*,*\n*as goddess of the Seven Stars\" (\"Typology of Time,\"\nVol. II. p. 313,* Nat. Gen.*)*.*\n\nThe author shows that it was the goddess of the Great Bear and\nmother of Time who was in Egypt from the earliest times the \"*Living\nWord*,\"* *and that \"Sevekh-Kronus, whose type\nwas the Crocodile-Dragon, the pre-planetary form of Saturn, was\ncalled her son and consort; he was her Word-Logos\" (p. 321,*\n*Vol. I.).\n\nThe above is quite plain, but it was not the knowledge of astronomy\nonly that led the ancients to the process of *Sevening. *The\nprimal cause goes far deeper and will be explained in its place.\n\nThe above quotations are no digressions. They are brought forward\nas showing (*a*) the reason why a full Initiate was called\na \"Dragon,\" a \"Snake\" a \"Naga\";\nand (*b*) that our septenary division was used by the priests\nof the earliest dynasties in Egypt, for the same reason and on\nthe same basis as by us. This needs further elucidation, however.\nAs already stated, that which Mr. G. Massey calls the four genii\nof the four cardinal points; and the Chinese, the Black Warrior,\nWhite Tiger, Ver-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* For the same reason the division of the principles in man into\nseven are thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the\nhuman higher and lower nature.\n\n** Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the\nfour-fold division. It is the root of archaic classification.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 409 DRAGON AND CROCODILE.\n\nmilion Bird, and Azure Dragon, is called in the Secret Books,\n-- the \"Four Hidden Dragons of Wisdom\" and the \"Celestial\nNagas.\" Now, as shown, the seven-headed or septenary **D**RAGON-**L**OGOS\nhad been in course of time split up, so to speak, into four heptanomic\nparts or twenty-eight portions. Each lunar week has a distinct\noccult character in the lunar month; each day of the twenty-eight\nhas its special characteristics; as each of the twelve constellations,\nwhether separately or in combination with other signs, has an\noccult influence either for good or for evil. This represents\nthe sum of knowledge that men can acquire on this earth; yet few\nare those who acquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who\nget to the root of knowledge symbolized by the great Root Dragon,\nthe spiritual LOGOS of these visible signs. But those who do,\nreceive the name of \"Dragons,\" and they are the \"Arhats\nof the Four Truths of the 28 Faculties,\" or attributes, and\nhave always been so called.\n\nThe Alexandrian Neo-Platonists asserted that to become real *Chaldees\n*or Magi, one had to master the science or knowledge of the\nperiods of the Seven Rectors of the world, in whom is all wisdom.\nIn \"Proclus in* Timaeus*,\"* *b.* *1,\nJamblichus is credited with another version, which does not however,\nalter, the meaning. He says that \"the Assyrians have not\nonly preserved the records of seven and twenty myriads of years,\nas Hipparchus says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases\nand periods of the Seven Rulers of the World.\" The legends\nof every nation and tribe, whether civilized or savage, point\nto the once universal belief in the great wisdom and cunning of\nthe Serpents. They are \"charmers.\" They hypnotise the\nbird with their eye, and man himself, very often, does not feel\nabove their fascinating influence; therefore the symbol is a most\nfitting one.\n\nThe crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of\nHeaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence\nof its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis. According to Eusebius,\nthe Egyptians represented the sun in a ship as its pilot, this\nship being carried along by a crocodile \"to show the motion\nof the Sun in the moyst (Space)\",* *(*Prepar. Evang.*,\n1, 3, c. 3). The crocodile was moreover, the symbol of Egypt herself\n-- the *lower*,* *as being the more swampy of the\ntwo countries. The Alchemists claim another interpretation. They\nsay that the symbol of the sun in the ship on the Ether of Space\nmeant that the hermetic matter is the principle, or basis, of\ngold, or again the *philosophical *sun; the water, within\nwhich the crocodile is swimming, is that water or matter made\nliquid; the ship herself, finally, representing the vessel of\nnature, in which the sun, or the sulphuric, igneous principle,\nacts as a pilot: because it is the sun\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwhich conducts the work by his action upon the *moist *or*\nmercury. *The above is only for the Alchemists.\n\nThe Serpent became the type and symbol of evil, and of the Devil,\nonly during the middle ages. The early Christians -- besides the\nOphite Gnostics -- had their dual Logos: the Good and the Bad\nSerpent, the Agathodaemon and the Kakodaemon. This is demonstrated\nby the writings of Marcus, Valentinus, and many others, and especially\nin *Pistis Sophia* --* *certainly a document of\nthe earliest centuries of Christianity. On the marble sarcophagus\nof a tomb, discovered in 1852 near the Porta Pia, one sees the\nscene of the adoration of the Magi, \"or else,\" remarks\nthe late C. W. King in \"*The Gnostics*,\"*\n*\"the* *prototype of that scene, the 'Birth of\nthe New Sun.'\" The mosaic floor exhibited a curious design\nwhich might have represented either (*a*)* *Isis\nsuckling the babe Harpocrates, or (*b*)* *the Madonna\nnursing the infant Jesus. In the smaller sarcophagi that surrounded\nthe larger one, eleven leaden plates rolled like scrolls were\nfound, three of which have been deciphered. The contents of these\nought to be regarded as final proof of a much-vexed question,\nfor they show that either the early Christians, up to the VIth\nCentury, were *bond fide *pagans, or that dogmatic Christianity\nwas borrowed wholesale, and passed in full into the Christian\nChurch -- Sun, Tree, Serpent, Crocodile and all.\n\n\"On the first is seen Anubis . . . holding out a scroll;\nat his feet are two female busts; below all are two serpents entwined\n. . . a corpse swathed up like a mummy. In the second scroll .\n. . is Anubis, holding out a cross, the \"Sign of Life.\"\nUnder his feet lies the corpse encircled in the numerous folds\nof a huge serpent, the Agathodaemon, guardian of the deceased.\n. . . . In the third scroll, Anubis bears on his arm . . . . .\nthe outline of . . a complete Latin cross . . . At the god's foot\nis a rhomboid, the Egyptian 'Egg of the World,' towards which\ncrawls a serpent coiled into a circle . . . . Under the busts\nis the letter [[omega]] repeated *seven *times in a line,\nreminding one of the 'names' . . . Very remarkable also is the\nline of characters, apparently Palmyrene, upon the legs of the\nfirst Anubis. As for the figure of the *serpent*,* *supposing\nthese talismans to emanate not from the Isiac but the newer Ophite\ncreed, it may well stand for that \"True and perfect Serpent,\"\nwho leads forth the souls of all that put their trust in him out\nof the Egypt of the body, and through the Red Sea of Death into\nthe Land of Promise, saving them on their way from the Serpents\nof the Wilderness, that is, from the Rulers of the Stars.\"\n(King's \"Gnostics,\" p. 366.)\n\nAnd this \"True and Perfect Serpent\" is the seven-lettered\nGod who is now credited with being Jehovah, and Jesus *One\nwith him. *To this Seven-vowelled god the candidate for initiation\nis sent by Christos, in the* Pistis Sophia*,* *a\nwork earlier than St. John's *Revelation*,* *and\nevidently of the same school. \"The (Serpent of the) Seven\nThunders uttered\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 411 THE MYSTERY OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS.\n\nthese seven vowels,\" but \"Seal up those things which\nthe seven thunders uttered, and write them not,\" says Revelation.\n\"Do ye seek after these mysteries?\" inquiries Jesus\nin *Pistis Sophia. *\"No mystery is more excellent\nthan they (the seven vowels): for they shall bring your souls\nunto the Light of Lights\" -- *i.e.*, true Wisdom.\n\"Nothing, therefore, is more excellent than the mysteries\nwhich ye seek after, saving only the *mystery of the Seven\nVowels and their ***F**ORTY AND NINE *Powers*,*\n*and the numbers thereof.\"\n\nIn India, it was *the mystery of the Seven ***F**IRES\nand their forty-nine fires or aspects, or \"the members thereof,\"\njust the same.\n\nThese seven vowels are represented by the Swastika signs on the\ncrowns of the seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity, in India,\namong esoteric Buddhists, in Egypt, in Chaldea, etc. etc., and\namong the Initiates of every other country. It is on the Seven\nzones of *post mortem *ascent, in the Hermetic writings,\nthat the \"mortal\" leaves, on each, one of his \"Souls\"\n(or Principles); until arrived on the plane above all zones he\nremains as the great Formless Serpent of absolute wisdom -- or\nthe Deity itself. The seven-headed serpent has more than one signification\nin the Arcane teachings. It is the seven-headed *Draco*,*\n*each of whose heads is a star of the Lesser Bear; but it\nwas also, and pre-eminently, the Serpent of Darkness (*i.e.*,\ninconceivable and incomprehensible) whose seven heads were the\nseven *Logoi*,* *the reflections of the one and\nfirst manifested Light -- the universal **L**OGOS.\n\n--------------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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