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    "num": 29,
    "slug": "31-xiv-the-four-elements-460",
    "title": "XIV. THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 4891,
    "text": "## XIV. THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 2, ch 14\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 460\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n##### § XIV.\nTHE FOUR ELEMENTS.\n\n**M**ETAPHYSICALLY and esoterically there is but\nOne **E**LEMENT in nature, and at the root of it is the Deity;\nand the so-called *seven *elements, of which five have\nalready manifested and asserted their existence, are the garment,\n*the veil*,* of that deity; *direct from the essence\nwhereof comes **M**AN, whether physically, psychically,\nmentally or spiritually considered. Four elements only are generally\nspoken of in later antiquity, five admitted only in philosophy.\nFor the body of ether is not fully manifested yet, and its noumenon\nis still \"the Omnipotent Father -- AEther, the synthesis\nof the rest.\" But what are these \"**E**LEMENTS\"\nwhose compound bodies have now been discovered by Chemistry and\nPhysics to contain numberless sub-elements, even the sixty or\nseventy of which no longer embrace the whole number suspected.\n(Vide *Addenda*,* *§§* ***XI.**\nand **XII**., quotations from Mr. Crookes' Lectures.) Let us\nfollow their evolution from the *historical *beginnings,\nat any rate.\n\nThe four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said\nthat they were *that *\"which* composes *and*\ndecomposes *the* compound bodies.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 461 ON THE ELEMENTS.\n\nHence Cosmolatry was never, even in its worst aspect, the fetishism\nwhich adores or worships the passive external form and matter\nof any object, but looked ever to the *noumenon *therein.\nFire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the visible garb, the symbols\nof the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits -- the Cosmic gods\nto whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, respectful\nrecognition by the wiser. In their turn the *phenomenal *subdivisions\nof the noumenal Elements were informed by the Elementals, so called,\nthe \"Nature Spirits\" of lower grades.\n\nIn the *Theogony *of Mochus, we find Ether first, and then\nthe air; the two principles from which Ulom the *intelligible\n*([[*noetos*]]) God (the visible universe of matter)\nis born.*\n\nIn the Orphic hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the Spiritual\nEgg, which the AEthereal winds impregnate, Wind being \"the\nSpirit of God,\" who is said to move in AEther, \"brooding\nover the chaos\" -- the Divine \"Idea.\" In the Hindu\n*Katakopanisad*,* *Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already\nstands before the original matter, from whose union springs the\ngreat Soul of the World, \"Maha = Atma, Brahm, the Spirit\nof Life;\"** these latter appellations being again identical\nwith the Universal Soul, or *Anima Mundi*,* *the\nAstral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists, being its last and\nlowest division.\"\n\nThe [[*stoicheia*]] (Elements) of Plato and Aristotle,\nwere thus the *incorporeal principles *attached to the\nfour great divisions of our Cosmic World, and it is with justice\nthat Creuzer defines those primitive beliefs . . . *as a species\nof magism*,* a psychic paganism*,* *and a *deification\nof potencies*;* *a spiritualization which placed the\nbelievers in a close community with these potencies,\" (Book\nIX, p. 850). So close, indeed, that the hierarchies of those potencies\nor Forces have been classified on a graduated scale of seven from\nthe ponderable to the imponderable. They are Septenary, -- not\nas an artificial aid to facilitate their comprehension -- but\nin their real *Cosmic *gradation, from their chemical (or\nphysical) to their purely spiritual composition. *Gods*\n--* *with the ignorant masses -- gods independent and supreme;\ndaemons with the fanatics, who, intellectual as they often may\nbe, are unable to understand the Spirit of the philosophical sentence,\n*in pluribus unum. *With the hermetic philosopher they\nare FORCES *relatively *\"*blind*,\"*\n*or* *\"*intelligent*,\"* *according\nto which of the principles in them he deals with. It required\nlong millenniums before they found themselves, in our cultured\nage, finally degraded into simple chemical elements.\n\nAt any rate, good Christians, and especially the Biblical Protestants,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Movers: \"Phoinizer,\" 282.\n\n** Weber: \"Akad. Vorles,\" 213, 214, etc.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 462 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nought to show more reverence for the four Elements, if they would\nshow any for Moses. For the Bible manifests the consideration\nand mystic significance in which they were held by the Hebrew\nLawgiver, on every page of the Pentateuch. The tent which contained\nthe Holy of Holies \" was a Cosmic Symbol, sacred, in one\nof its meanings, to the Elements, the four cardinal points, and\n**E**THER. Josephus shows it built in white, the\ncolour of Ether. And this explains also why, in the Egyptian and\nthe Hebrew temples -- according to Clemens Alexandrinus -- a gigantic\ncurtain, supported by five pillars, separated the *sanctum\nsanctorum *(now represented by the altar in Christian churches)\nwherein the priests alone were permitted to enter, from the part\naccessible to the profane. By its *four *colours the curtain\nsymbolized the four principal Elements, and signified the knowledge\nof the divine that the *five* senses of men can enable\nman to acquire with the help of the *four *Elements. (See\n*Stromata *I., v. § 6).\n\nIn Cory's *Ancient Fragments*,* *one of the \"Chaldean\nOracles\" expresses ideas about the elements and Ether in\nlanguage singularly like that of the *Unseen Universe*,*\n*written by two eminent scientists of our day.\n\nIt states that \"from ether have come all things, and to it\nall will return; that the images of all things are indelibly impressed\nupon it; and that it is the store-house of the germs or of the\nremains of all visible forms, and even ideas. It appears as if\nthis case strangely corroborates our assertion that whatever discoveries\nmay be made in our days will be found to have been anticipated\nby many thousand years by our 'simple-minded ancestors.' \"\n-- (*Isis Unveiled.*)\n\nWhence came the four elements and the *malachim *of the\nHebrews? They have been made to merge, by a theological sleight-of-hand\non the part of the Rabbins and the later Fathers of the Church\ninto Jehovah, but their origin is identical with that of the Cosmic\ngods of all other nations. Their symbols, whether born on the\nshores of the Oxus, on the burning sands of Upper Egypt, or in\nthe wild forests, weird and glacial, which cover the slopes and\npeaks of the sacred snowy mountains of Thessaly, or again, in\nthe *pampas *of America, their symbols, we repeat, when\ntraced to their source, are ever one and the same. Whether Egyptian\nor Pelasgian, Aryan or Semitic, the *genius loci*,*\n*the local god, embraced in its unity all nature; but not\nespecially the four elements any more than one of their creations,\nsuch as trees, rivers, mounts or stars. The *genius loci*\n--* *a very late after-thought of the last sub-races of\nthe Fifth Root-race, when the primitive and grandiose meaning\nhad become nearly lost -- was ever the representative in his accumulated\ntitles of all his colleagues. It was the god of *fire*,\nsymbolised by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the god of *water*,*\n*symbolised by the fluvial bull or some sacred river or fountain,\nas Varuna, Neptune, etc.; the god of *air*, manifesting\nin the hurricane and tempest, as Vayu and Indra; and the god or\nspirit\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 463 THE COSMIC GODS.\n\nof the earth, who appeared in earthquakes, like Pluto, Yama, and\nso many others.\n\nThese were the Cosmic gods, ever synthesizing all in one, as found\nin every cosmogony or mythology. Thus, the Greeks had their Dodonean\nJupiter, who included in himself the four elements and the four\ncardinal points, and who was recognized, therefore, in old Rome\nunder the pantheistic title of *Jupiter Mundus*;* *and\nwho now, in modern Rome, has become the *Deus Mundus*,*\n*the one mundane god, who is made to swallow all others in\nthe latest theology -- by the arbitrary decision of his special\nministers.\n\nAs gods of Fire, Air, Water, they were *celestial *gods;\nas gods of the *lower region*,* *they were *infernal\n*deities: the latter adjective applying simply *to the\nEarth. *They were \"Spirits of the Earth\" under their\nrespective names of Yama, Pluto, Osiris, the \"Lord of the\nlower kingdom, etc., etc.,\" and their tellurial character\nproves it sufficiently.* The ancients knew of no worse abode after\ndeath than the *Kamaloka*,* *the* limbus *on\nthis Earth. If it is argued that the Dodonean Jupiter was identified\nwith Aidoneus, the king of the subterranean world, and *Dis*,*\n*or the Roman Pluto and the Dionysius Chthonios, the subterranean,\nwherein, according to Creuzer (I, vi., ch. 1), oracles were rendered,\nthen it will become the pleasure of the Occultists to prove that\nboth Aidoneus and Dionysius are the bases of Adonai, or \"Jurbo\nAdonai,\" as Jehovah is called in Codex Nazaraeus. \"Thou\nshalt not worship the Sun, who is named Adonai, whose name is\nalso *Kadush *and El-El\" (*Cod. Naz.*,*\n*I, 47; see also Psalm lxxxix., 18), and also \"Lord Bacchus.\"\nBaal-Adonis of the *Sods *or Mysteries of the pre-Babylonian\nJews became the Adonai by the Massorah, the later-vowelled Jehovah.\nHence the Roman Catholics are right. All these Jupiters are of\nthe same family; but Jehovah has to be included therein to make\nit complete. Jupiter-*Aerios *or* Pan*,* *the\nJupiter Ammon, and the Jupiter-Bel-Moloch, are all correlations\nand one with Yurbo-Adonai, because they are all one cosmic nature.\nIt is that nature and power which create the specific terrestrial\nsymbol, and the physical and material fabric of the latter, which\nproves the Energy manifesting through it as *extrinsic.*\n\nFor primitive religion was something better than simple pre-occupation\nabout physical phenomena, as remarked by Schilling; and principles,\nmore elevated than we modern Sadducees know of, \"were hidden\nunder the transparent veil of such merely natural divinities as\nthunder,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The* Gehenna *of the Bible was a valley near Jerusalem,\nwhere the monotheistic Jews immolated their children to Moloch,\nif the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed on his word. The Scandinavian\n*Hel* or *Hela* was a frigid region -- again Kamaloka\n-- and the Egyptian Amenti a place of purification. (See *Isis\nUnveiled*,* *Vol. II., p. 11.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 464 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe winds, and rain.\" The ancients knew and could distinguish\nthe *corporeal *from the *spiritual *elements, in\nthe forces of nature.\n\nThe four-fold Jupiter, as the four-faced Brahma -- the aerial,\nthe fulgurant, the terrestrial, and the marine god -- the lord\nand master of the four elements, may stand as a representative\nfor the great Cosmic gods of every nation. While passing power\nover the fire to Hephaistos-Vulcan, over the sea, to Poseidon-Neptune,\nand over the Earth, to Pluto-Aidoneus -- the AERIAL Jove was all\nthese; for **AE**THER, from the first, had pre-eminence\nover, and was the synthesis of, all the elements.\n\nTradition points to a grotto, a vast cave in the deserts of Central\nAsia, whereinto light pours through its four seemingly natural\napertures or clefts placed crossways at the four cardinal points\nof the place. From noon till an hour before sunset that light\nstreams in, of four different colours, as averred -- red, blue,\norange-gold, and white -- owing to some either natural or artificially\nprepared conditions of vegetation and soil. The light converges\nin the centre around a pillar of white marble with a globe upon\nit, which represents our earth. It is named the \"grotto of\nZaratushta.\"\n\nWhen included under the arts and sciences of the fourth race,\nthe Atlanteans, the phenomenal manifestation of the four elements,\njustly attributed by the believers in Cosmic gods to the intelligent\ninterference of the latter, assumed a scientific character. The\n*magic *of the ancient priests consisted, in those days,\nin addressing *their gods in their own language. *\"The\nspeech of the men of the earth cannot reach the Lords. Each must\nbe addressed in the language of his respective element\" --\nis a sentence which will be shown pregnant with meaning. \"*The\nBook of Rules*\"* *cited adds as an explanation\nof the nature of that *Element*-language: \"It is composed\nof *sounds*,* *not words; of sounds, numbers and\nfigures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call forth\nthe response of the superintending Power\" (the regent-god\nof the specific element needed).\n\nThus this \"language\" is that of *incantations *or\nof **M**ANTRAS, as they are called in India, sound\nbeing *the most potent and effectual magic agent*,*\nand the first of the keys which opens the door of communication\nbetween Mortals and the Immortals. *He who believes in the\nwords and teachings of St. Paul, has no right to pick out from\nthe latter those sentences only that he chooses to accept, to\nthe rejection of others; and St. Paul teaches most undeniably\nthe existence of cosmic gods and their presence among us. Paganism\npreached a dual and simultaneous evolution: \"creation\"\n-- \"*spiritualem ac mundanum*,\"* *as the\nRoman Church has it -- ages before the advent of that Roman Church.\nExoteric phraseology has changed little with respect to divine\nhierarchies since the most palmy days of Paganism, or \"Idolatry.\"\nNames alone have changed,\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 465 A CONFESSION OF SCIENCE.\n\nalong with claims which have now become false pretences. For when\nPlato put in the mouth of the Highest Principle -- \"Father\nAEther\" or Jupiter -- these words, for instance: \"The\ngods of the gods of whom I am the *maker *(*opifex*)*\n*as* *I am the father of all their works (*operumque\nparens*)\"; he knew the spirit of this sentence as fully,\nwe suspect, as St. Paul did, when saying: \"For though there\nbe that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there\nbe gods many and lords many,\" . . . . etc. (1 Cor. viii.\n5.)* Both knew the sense and the meaning of what they put forward\nin such guarded terms.\n\nSays Sir W. Grove, **F.R.S**., speaking of the correlation\nof forces, \"The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon,\nremoved from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical\naction known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural\npower. . . . Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual,\nbut subsequently they became invested with a more material character;\nand the same words [[*pneuma*]], spirit, etc., were used\nto signify the soul or a gas; the very word gas, from *geist*,*\n*a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual\ntransmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception . . .\n. . .\" (P. 89.) This, the great man of science (in his preface\nto the fifth edition of \"Correlation of Physical Forces\")\nconsiders as the *only *concern of exact science, which\nhas no business to meddle with the CAUSES. \"Cause and effect,\"\nhe explains, \"are therefore, in their abstract relation to\nthese forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted\n*with the ultimate generating power *of each and all of\nthem, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain\nthe norma of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation\nto one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying\ntheir effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual relations\"\n(p. xiv.).\n\nThis policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in\nthe above-quoted words, namely, the *spirituality *of the\n\"ultimate generating power,\" it would be more than illogical\nto refuse to recognise this quality which is inherent in the *material\nelements*,* *or rather, in their com-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* We cannot be taken to task by the Protestants for interpreting\nthe verse from the *Corinthians *as we do; for, if the\ntranslation in the English Bible is made ambiguous, it is not\nso in the original texts, and the Roman Catholic Church accepts\nthe words of the Apostle in their true sense. For a proof see\nthe *Commentaries on St. Paul*'*s Epistles*,*\n*by St. John Chrysostom \"*directly inspired *by\nthe Apostle,\" and \"who wrote under his dictation,\"\nas we are assured by the Marquis de Mirville, whose works are\napproved by Rome. And St. Chrysostom says, commenting on that\nspecial verse, \"And, though there are (in fact) they who\nare called gods . . . . -- for it seems, there are really *several\ngods* --* *withal, and for all that, the God-*principle\n*and the Superior God ceasing to remain essentially *one*\nand indivisible.\" . . . Thus spoke the old Initiates also,\nknowing that the worship of minor gods could never affect the\n\"God *Principle*\"* *(See* *de Mirville,\n\"*Des Esprits*,\"* *vol. ii., 322)*.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 466 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\npounds -- as present in the fire, air, water or earth. The ancients\nknew these powers so well, that, while concealing their true nature\nunder various allegories, for the benefit (or to the detriment)\nof the uneducated rabble, they never departed from the multiple\nobject in view, while inverting them. They contrived to throw\na thick veil over the nucleus of truth concealed by the symbol,\nbut they ever tried to preserve the latter as a *record *for\nfuture generations, sufficiently transparent to allow their wise\nmen to discern that truth behind the fabulous form of the glyph\nor allegory. They are accused of *superstition *and*\ncredulity*,* *those ancient sages; and this by those\nvery nations, which, learned in all the modern arts and sciences,\ncultured and wise in their generation, accept to this day as their\none living and infinite God, the anthropomorphic \"Jehovah\"\nof the Jews.\n\nWhat were some of the alleged \"superstitions\"? Hesiod\nbelieved, for instance, that \"the winds were the sons of\nthe giant Typhoeus,\" who were chained and unchained at will\nby AEolus, and the polytheistic Greeks accepted it along with\nHesiod. Why should not they, since the monotheistic Jews had the\nsame beliefs, with other names for their *dramatis personae*,*\n*and since Christians believe in the same to this day? The\nHesiodic AEolus, Boreas, etc., etc., were named *Kadim*,*\nTzaphon*,* Daren*,* and Ruach Hajan *by the\n\"chosen people\" of Israel. What is, then, the fundamental\ndifference? While the Hellenes were taught that AEolus tied and\nuntied the winds, the Jews believed as fervently that their Lord\nGod, \"*with smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire\nout of his mouth*,* rode upon a cherub and did fly; *and\nwas seen *upon the wings of the wind*\"* *(*II.\nSam.*,* xxii. *9* and *11). The expressions\nof the two nations are either both figures of speech, or both\n*superstitions. *We think they are neither; but only arise\nfrom a keen sense of oneness with nature, and a perception of\nthe mysterious and the intelligent behind every natural phenomenon,\nwhich the moderns no longer possess. Nor was it \"superstitious\"\nin the Greek pagans to listen to the oracle of Delphi, when, at\nthe approach of the fleet of Xerxes, that oracle advised them\nto \"sacrifice to the Winds,\" if the same has to be regarded\nas *Divine *Worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as\noften to the wind and fire -- especially to the latter element.\nDo they not say that their \"God is a consuming fire\"*\n*(*Deut. iv.*,* *24), who appeared generally\n*as *Fire and \"encompassed by fire\"? and did\nnot Elijah seek for him (the Lord) in the \"great strong wind,\nand in the earthquake\"? Do not the Christians repeat the\nsame after them? Do not they, moreover, sacrifice to this day,\nto the same \"*God of Wind and Water?*\"* *They\ndo; because special prayers for rain, dry weather, trade-winds\nand the calming of storms on the seas exist to this hour in the\nprayer-books of the three Christian churches; and the several\nhundred sects of the Protestant religion\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 467 THE FIGHTING GODS.\n\noffer them to their God upon every threat of calamity? The fact\nthat they are no more answered by Jehovah, than they were, probably,\nby Jupiter *Pluvius*,* *does not alter the fact\nof these prayers being addressed to the Power or Powers supposed\nto rule over the Elements, or of these Powers being identical\nin Paganism and Christianity; or have we to believe that such\nprayers are crass idolatry and absurd \"superstition\"\n*only *when addressed by a Pagan to his *idol*,*\n*and that the same superstition is suddenly transformed into\n*praiseworthy piety *and* religion *whenever the\nname of the celestial addressee is changed? But the tree *is\n*known by its fruit. And the fruit of the Christian tree being\nno better than that of the tree of Paganism, why should the former\ncommand more reverence than the latter.\n\nThus, when we are told by the Chevalier Drach, a converted Jew,\nand the Marquis de Mirville, a Roman Catholic fanatic of the French\naristocracy, that in Hebrew *lightning *is a synonym of\n*fury*,* *and is always handled by an *evil *Spirit;\nthat *Jupiter Fulgur* or *Fulgurans *is also called\nby the Christians *oelicius*,* *and denounced as\nthe *soul of lightning*,* *its* *daemon*;\nwe have either to apply the same explanation and definitions to\nthe \"Lord God of Israel,\" under the same circumstances,\nor renounce our right of abusing the gods and creeds of other\nnations.\n\nThe foregoing statements emanating as they do from two ardent\nand learned Roman Catholics, are, to say the least,* dangerous*,*\n*in the presence of the Bible and its prophets. Indeed, if\nJupiter, the \"chief Daemon of the Pagan Greeks,\" hurled\nhis deadly thunder-bolts and lightnings at those who excited his\nwrath, so did the Lord God of Abraham and Jacob. We find in I.\nSamuel, that \"the Lord thundered from heaven, and the most\nHigh uttered *his *voice, and he sent out arrows (thunder\nbolts) and scattered them (Saul's armies) with lightning, and\ndiscomforted them.\" (*Chap. xxii. *14,* *15.)\n\nThe Athenians are accused of having sacrificed to Boreas; and\nthis \"Demon\" is charged with having submerged and wrecked\n400 ships of the Persian fleet on the rocks of Mount Pelion, and\nof having become so furious \"that all the Magi of Xerxes\ncould hardly counteract it by offering contra-sacrifices to Tethys\"\n[*Herodotus *\"Polym.\" cxc]. Very fortunately,\nno authenticated instance is on the records of Christian wars\nshowing a like catastrophe on the same scale happening to one\nChristian fleet owing to the \"prayers\" of its enemy\n-- another Christian nation. But this is from no fault of theirs,\nfor each prays as ardently to Jehovah for the destruction of the\nother, as the Athenians prayed to Boreas. Both resorted to a neat\nlittle piece of black magic *con amore. *Such abstinence\nfrom divine interference being hardly due to lack of\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Cosmolatry, p. 415.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 468 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nprayers, sent to a *common *Almighty God for mutual destruction,\nwhere, then, shall we draw the line between Pagan and Christian?\nAnd who can doubt that all Protestant England would rejoice and\noffer thanks to the Lord, if, during some future war, 400 ships\nof the hostile fleet were to be wrecked owing to such holy prayers.\nWhat is, then, the difference, we ask again, between a Jupiter,\na Boreas, and a Jehovah? No more than this: The crime of one's\nown next-of-kin -- say of one's \"father\" -- is always\nexcused and often exalted, whereas the crime of our neighbour's\nparent is ever gladly punished by hanging. Yet the crime is the\nsame.\n\nSo far the \"blessings of Christianity\" do not seem to\nhave made any appreciable advance on the morals of the converted\nPagans.\n\nThe above is not a defence of Pagan gods, nor is it an attack\non the Christian deity, nor does it mean belief in either. The\nwriter is quite impartial, and rejects the testimony in favour\nof either, neither praying to, believing in, nor dreading any\nsuch \"personal\" and anthropomorphic God. The parallels\nare brought forward simply as one more curious exhibition of the\nillogical and blind fanaticism of the civilized theologian. For,\nso far, there is not a very great difference between the two beliefs,\nand there is none in their respective effects upon *morality*,*\n*or spiritual nature. The \"light of Christ\" shines\nupon as hideous features of the animal-man now, as the \"light\nof Lucifer\" did in days of old.\n\n\"Those unfortunate heathens in their superstition regard\neven the Elements as something that has comprehension! . . . .\nThey still have faith in their idol Vayu -- the god or, rather,\nDemon of the Wind and Air . . . they firmly believe in the efficacy\nof their prayers, and in the powers of their Brahmins over the\nwinds and storms. . . . .\" (The Missionary Lavoisier, of\nCochin, in the *Journal des Colonies.*)* *In reply\nto this, we may quote from *Luke viii.*,* *24: \"And\nhe (Jesus) arose and *rebuked the Wind and the raging of the\nWater*,* and they ceased and there was a calm*.\"\nAnd here is another quotation from a prayer book: . . . \"Oh,\nVirgin of the Sea, blessed Mother and Lady of the Waters, stay\nthy waves . . .\" etc., etc. (prayer of the Neapolitan and\nProvencal sailors, copied textually from that of the Phoenician\nmariners to their Virgingoddess Astarte.) The logical and irrepressible\nconclusion arising from the parallels brought forward, and the\ndenunciation of the Missionary is this: The *commands *of\nthe Brahmins to their element-gods not *remaining *\"*ineffectual,*\"*\n*the power of the Brahmins is thus placed on a par with that\nof Jesus. Moreover, Astarte is shown not a whit weaker in potency\nthan the \"Virgin of the Sea\" of Christian sailors. It\nis not enough to give a dog a bad name, and then hang him; the\ndog has to be proven guilty. Boreas and Astarte may be *devils\n*in theological\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 469 PRAYER IS OFTEN SORCERY.\n\nfancy, but, as just remarked, the tree has to be judged by its\nfruit. And once the Christians are shown as immoral and wicked\nas the pagans ever were, what benefit has humanity derived from\nits change of gods and idols?\n\nThat, however, which God and the Christian Saints are justified\nin doing, becomes a crime, if successful, in simple mortals. Sorcery\nand incantations are regarded as fables now; yet from the day\nof the *Institutes of Justinian *down to the laws against\nwitchcraft of England and America -- *obsolete *but not\nrepealed to this day -- such incantations, even when only suspected,\nwere punished as criminal. Why punish a chimera? And still we\nread of Constantine, the Emperor, sentencing to death the philosopher\nSopatrus *for unchaining the winds, *and thus preventing\nships loaded with grain from arriving in time to put an end to\nfamine. Pausanias, when affirming that he saw with his own eyes\n\"men who by simple *prayers and incantations*\"*\n*stopped a strong hail-storm, is derided. This does not prevent\nmodern Christian writers from advising prayer during storm and\ndanger, and believing in its efficacy. Hoppo and Stadlein two\nmagicians and sorcerers -- were sentenced to death for throwing\n*charms on fruit *and transferring a harvest *by magic\narts *from one field to another, hardly a century ago, if\nwe can believe Sprenger, the famous writer, who vouches for it:\n\"*Qui fruges excantassent segetem pellicentes incantando.*\"\n\nLet us close by reminding the reader that, without the smallest\nshadow of superstition, one may believe in the dual nature of\nevery object on Earth -- in the spiritual and the material, the\nvisible and the invisible nature, and that science virtually proves\nthis, while denying its own demonstration. For if, as Sir William\nGrove has it, the electricity we handle is but the *result\n*of ordinary matter affected by something *invisible, the\n*\"*ultimate *generating power\" of every Force,\nthe \"*one omnipresent influence,*\"* *then\nit only becomes natural that one should believe as the ancients\ndid; namely, that every Element is *dual *in its nature.\n\"ETHEREAL fire is the emanation of the KABIR proper; the\n*aerial *is but the union (correlation) of the former with\n*terrestrial fire, *and its guidance and application on\nour earthly plane belongs to a *Kabir *of a lesser dignity\"\n-- an Elemental, perhaps, as an Occultist would call it; and the\nsame may be said of every Cosmic Element.\n\nNo one will deny that the human being is possessed of various\nforces: magnetic, sympathetic, antipathetic, nervous, dynamical,\noccult, mechanical, mental -- every kind of force; and that the\nphysical forces are all biological in their essence, seeing that\nthey intermingle with, and often merge into, those forces that\nwe have named intellectual and moral -- the first being the vehicles,\nso to say, the *upadhi, of *the second. No one, who does\nnot deny soul in man, would hesitate in\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 470 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nsaying that their presence and commingling are the very essence\nof our being; that they constitute the *Ego *in man, in\nfact. These potencies have their physiological, physical, mechanical,\nas well as their nervous, ecstatic, clairaudient, and clairvoyant\nphenomena, which are now regarded and recognised as perfectly\nnatural, even by science. Why should man be the only exception\nin nature, and why cannot even the ELEMENTS have their *vehicles,\n*their \"Vahans\" in what we call the PHYSICAL FORCES?\nAnd why, above all, should such beliefs be called \"superstition\"\nalong with the religions of old?\n\n--------------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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