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    "num": 1,
    "slug": "51-preliminary-notes",
    "title": "PRELIMINARY NOTES.",
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    "words": 5451,
    "text": "## PRELIMINARY NOTES.\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 2, Preliminary Notes\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page xv]]\n\n[[*Eh eme didache ouk estin eme, alla tou pemphantos me*.]]\n\n\"My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.\"\n\n-- John vii. 16.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page xvi]]\n\n**M**ODERN science insists upon the doctrine of evolution;\nso do human reason and the \"Secret Doctrine,\" and the\nidea is corroborated by the ancient legends and myths, and even\nby the Bible itself when it is read between the lines. We see\na flower slowly developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed.\nBut whence the latter, with all its predetermined programme of\nphysical transformation, and its invisible, therefore *spiritual\n*forces which gradually develop its form, colour, and odour?\nThe word *evolution *speaks for itself. The germ of the present\nhuman race must have preexisted in the parent of this race, as\nthe seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was\ndeveloped in the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may\nbe but *slightly *different, but it still differs from its\nfuture progeny. The antediluvian ancestors of the present elephant\nand lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus; why\nshould not the progenitors of our human race have been the \"*giants*\"\nof the *Vedas, *the* Voluspa, *and the Book of *Genesis?\n*While it is positively absurd to believe the \"transformation\nof species\" to have taken place according to some of the\nmore materialistic views of the evolutionists, it is but natural\nto think that each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending\nwith man, had modified its own primordial and distinctive forms.\n-- \"Isis Unveiled,\" Vol. I., p. 153.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 1]]\n\n#### PRELIMINARY NOTES.\n\n-------\n\n##### ON THE ARCHAIC STANZAS, AND THE FOUR PRE-HISTORIC CONTINENTS.\n\n\"Facies totius Universi, quamvis infinitis modis variet,\n\nManet tamen semper eadem.\" -- **S**PINOZA.\n\n**T**HE Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in\nthis Book, the second, are drawn from the same Archaic Records\nas the Stanzas on Cosmogony in Book I. As far as possible a verbatim\ntranslation is given; but some of the Stanzas were too obscure\nto be understood without explanation. Hence, as was done in Book\nI., while they are first given in full as they stand, when taken\nverse by verse with their Commentaries an attempt is made to make\nthem clearer, by words added in brackets, in anticipation of the\nfuller explanation of the Commentary.\n\nAs regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates\nthree new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern\nscience as well as to current religious dogmas: it teaches*\n*(*a*) the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups\non seven different portions of our globe; (*b*) the birth\nof the *astral, *before the *physical* body: the\nformer being a model for the latter; and (*c*) that man,\nin this Round, preceded every mammalian -- the anthropoids included\n-- in the animal kingdom.*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Genesis ch. ii., v. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in\nverse 19 it is said: \"Out of the *ground *the Lord\nGod formed *every beast of the field, and every fowl of the\nair;* *and brought them unto Adam *to see what he would\ncall them.\" Thus man was created *before *the animals;\nfor the animals mentioned in chapter i. are the signs of the Zodiac,\nwhile the man, \"male and female,\" is not *man, *but\nthe Host of the Sephiroth; **F**ORCES, or Angels,\n\"made in his (God's) image and after his likeness.\"\nThe Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted\nin the Bible. Moreover, the Second Adam [[Footnote continued on\nnext page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 2 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval MEN born\nsimultaneously on the seven divisions of our Globe. In the *Divine*\n\"*Pymander*\"* *of Hermes we find the same\nSeven primeval men* evolving from Nature and \"Heavenly Man,\"\nin the collective sense of the word, namely, from the Creative\nSpirits; and in the fragments (collected by George Smith) of Chaldean\ntablets on which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation,\nin the first column of the *Cutha *tablet, seven human\nbeings with the faces of ravens (black, swarthy complexions),\nwhom \"the (Seven) great gods created,\" are mentioned.\nOr, as explained in lines 16 and 18 -- \"In the midst of the\nEarth they grew up and became great . . . . Seven kings, brothers\nof the same family.\" These are the Seven Kings of Edom to\nwhom reference is made in the Kabala; the first race, which was\n*imperfect, i.e., *was born before the \"balance\"\n(sexes) existed, and which was therefore destroyed. (Zohar, *Siphrah\nDzeniouta, Idrah Suta,* 2928,* La Kabbale, *p. 205.)\n\"*Seven Kings,* brethren, appeared and begat children,\n6,000 in number were their peoples\" (Hibbert Lectures, p.\n372). The god Nergas (death) destroyed them. \"How did he\ndestroy them?\" \"By bringing into equilibrium (or balance)\nthose who did not yet exist\" (*Siphrah Dzeniouta*)*.\n*They were \"destroyed,\" as a race, by being merged\nin their own progeny (by exudation); that is to say, the sexless\nrace reincarnated in the bisexual\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] is esoterically a septenary\nwhich represents seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first\nAdam -- the Kadmon -- is the synthesis of the *ten* Sephiroth.\nOf these, the upper triad remains in the Archetypal World as the\nfuture \"Trinity,\" while the seven lower Sephiroth create\nthe manifested material world; and *this septenate is the second\nAdam. *Genesis, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated,\ncame from Egypt. The \"God\" of the 1st chapter of Genesis\nis the *Logos, *and the \"Lord God\" of the 2nd\nchapter the Creative *Elohim* -- the* lower* powers.\n\n* Thus saith Pymander -- \"This is the mystery that to this\nday was hidden. Nature being mingled with the Heavenly man (Elohim,\nor Dhyanis), brought forth a wonder . . . . *Seven men,*\nall males and females (Hermaphrodite) . . . according to the nature\nof the seven Governors\" -- Book II. v. 29) -- or the seven\nHosts of the *Pitris *or Elohim, who projected or created\nhim. This is very clear, but yet, see the interpretations of even\nour modern theologians, men supposed to be intellectual and learned!\nIn the \"*Theological and philosophical works of Hermes\nTrismegistus, Christian *(*?*)* Neoplatonist,*\"*\n*a work compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College,\nOxford, the translator wonders \"for whom these *seven\nmen *are intended?\" He solves the difficulty by concluding\nthat, as \"the original pattern man (*Adam Kadmon of ch.*\ni.* Genesis*)* *was masculine-feminine, the seven\nmay signify the succeeding patriarchs named in Genesis\" (p.\n9) . . . A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 3 THE LEMNOS-BORN KABIRI.\n\n(potentially); the latter in the Androgynes; these again in the\nsexual, the later third Race; (for further explanation, *vide\ninfra*)*. *Were the tablets less mutilated, they would\nbe found to contain word for word the same account as given in\nthe archaic records and in Hermes, at least as regards the fundamental\nfacts, if not as regards minute details; for Hermes is a good\ndeal disfigured by mistranslations.\n\nIt is quite certain that the seeming supernaturalism of these\nteachings, although allegorical, is so diametrically opposed to\nthe dead-letter statements of the Bible* as well as to the latest\nhypotheses of science, that it will evoke passionate denial. The\nOccultists, however, know that the traditions of Esoteric Philosophy\nmust be the right ones, simply because they are the most logical,\nand reconcile every difficulty. Besides, we have the Egyptian\n\"*Books of Thoth,*\"* *and \"*Book\nof the Dead,*\" and the Hindu Puranas with the seven Manus,\nas well as the Chaldeo-Assyrian accounts, whose tiles mention\nseven primitive men, or Adams, the real meaning of which name\nmay be ascertained through the Kabala. Those who know anything\nof the Samothracian mysteries will also remember that the generic\nname of the Kabiri was the \"Holy Fires,\" which created\non seven localities of the island of *Electria *(or Samothrace)\nthe \"Kabir born of the Holy Lemnos\" (the island sacred\nto* Vulcan*).\n\nAccording to Pindar (*See *\"*Philosophumena,*\"*\nMiller*'*s edition, p. *98), this Kabir, whose name\nwas Adamas, was, in the traditions of Lemnos, the type of the\nprimitive man born from the bosom of the Earth. He was the Archetype\nof the first males in the order of generation, and was one of\nthe seven autochthonous ancestors or progenitors of mankind (*ibid,\np. *108). If, while coupling with this the fact that Samothrace\nwas colonised by the Phoenicians, and before them by the mysterious\nPelasgians who came from the East, one remembers also the identity\nof the* mystery *gods of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and\nIsraelites, it will be easy to discover whence came also the confused\naccount of the Noachian deluge. It has become undeniable of late\nthat the Jews, who obtained their primitive ideas about creation\nfrom Moses, who had them from\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* As it is now asserted that the Chaldean tablets, which give\nthe allegorical description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood,\neven to the legend of the Tower of Babel, were written \"before\nthe time of Moses\" (*See G. Smith*'*s *\"*Chaldean\nAccount of Genesis,*\" *p*. 86), how can the Pentateuch\nbe called a *revelation? *It is simply another version\nof the same story.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 4 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe Egyptians, compiled their Genesis and first Cosmogonic traditions\n-- when these were rewritten by Ezra and others -- from the Chaldeo-Akkadian\naccount. It is, therefore, sufficient to examine the Babylonian\nand Assyrian cuneiform and other inscriptions to find also therein,\nscattered here and there, not only the original meaning of the\nname Adam, Admi, or Adami,* but also the creation of seven Adams\nor roots of men, born of Mother Earth, physically, and of the\n*divine fire *of the progenitors, spiritually or astrally.\nThe Assyriologists, ignorant of the esoteric teachings, could\nhardly be expected to pay any greater attention to the mysterious\nand ever-recurring number seven on the Babylonian cylinders, than\nthey paid to it on finding the same in Genesis and the Bible.\nYet the number of the ancestral spirits and their seven groups\nof human progeny are there, notwithstanding the dilapidated condition\nof the fragments, as plainly as they are to be found in* *\"*Pymander*\"*\n*and in the \"*Book of the Concealed Mystery*\"*\n*of the Kabala. In the latter Adam Kadmon is the Sephirothal\nTREE, as also the \"Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.\"\nAnd that \"*Tree,*\"* *says verse 32, \"hath\naround it seven columns,\" or palaces, of the seven creative\nAngels operating in the spheres of the seven planets on our Globe.\nAs Adam Kadmon is a *collective *name, so also is the name\nof the man Adam. Says George Smith* *in his* *\"*Chaldean\nAccount of Genesis*:\" --\n\n\"The word Adam used in these legends for the first human\nbeing is evidently *not a proper name, but is only used as\na term for mankind. *Adam appears as a proper name in Genesis,\nbut certainly in some passages is only used in the same sense\nas the Assyrian word\" (*p.* 86).\n\nMoreover, neither the Chaldean nor the Biblical deluge (the stories\nof Xisuthrus and Noah) is based on the universal or even on the\nAtlantean deluges, recorded in the Indian allegory of Vaivaswata\nManu. They are the *exoteric allegories based on the esoteric\nmysteries *of Samothrace. If the older Chaldees knew the esoteric\ntruth concealed in the Puranic legends, the other nations were\naware only of the Samothracian mystery, and allegorised it. They\nadapted it to their astronomical and anthropological, or rather\nphallic, notions. Samothrace is known *historically *to\nhave been famous in antiquity for a deluge, which submerged the\ncountry and reached the top of the highest mountains; an event\nwhich happened before the age of the Argonauts. It was overflowed\nvery\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Vide* §* *\"Adam-Adami,\" in Part\nII. of this volume.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 5 THE SECRETS OF KOUYUNJIK.\n\nsuddenly by the waters of the Euxine, regarded up to that time\nas a lake.* But the Israelites had, moreover, another legend upon\nwhich to base their allegory: the \"deluge,\" that transformed\nthe present Gobi Desert into a sea *for the last time, *some\n10 or 12,000 years ago, and which drove many Noahs and their families\non to the surrounding mountains. As the Babylonian accounts are\nnow only restored from hundreds of thousands of broken fragments\n(the mound of *Kouyunjik *alone having yielded to Layard's\nexcavations over twenty thousand fragments of inscriptions), the\nproofs here cited are comparatively scanty; yet such as they are,\nthey corroborate almost every one of our teachings, certainly\nthree, at least. These are: --\n\n(1.) That the race which was the first to fall into generation\nwas a *dark Race *(*Zalmat Gaguadi*)*, *which\nthey call the *Adami *or dark Race, and that *Sarku,\n*or the light Race, remained pure for a long while subsequently.\n\n(2.) That the Babylonians recognised *two principal Races *at\nthe time of the Fall, the Race of the Gods (the Ethereal *doubles\nof the Pitris*), having preceded these two. This is Sir H.\nRawlinson's opinion. These \"Races\" are our second and\nthird Root-races.\n\n(3) That these seven Gods, each of whom created a *man, *or\ngroup of men, were \"the gods *imprisoned *or incarnated.\"\nThese gods were: the god *Zi; *the god *Ziku *(noble\nlife, Director of purity); the god *Mirku* (noble crown)\n\"Saviour from death of the gods\" (later on) imprisoned,\nand the creator of \"the dark Race which his hand has made;\"\nthe god *Libzu *\"wise among the gods\"; the god\n*Nissi . *. . . and the god *Suhhab;* and *Hea*\nor *Sa, *their synthesis, the god of wisdom and of the\nDeep, identified with Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the fall, and\ncalled (collectively) the Demiurge, or Creator. (*See Chaldean\nAccount Genesis, *p. 82.)\n\nThere are two \"Creations\" so called, in the Babylonian\nfragments, and *Genesis *having adhered to this, one finds\nits first two chapters distinguished as the Elohite and the Jehovite\ncreations. Their proper order, however, is not preserved in these\nor in any other exoteric accounts. Now these \"Creations,\"\naccording to the occult teachings, refer respectively to the formation\nof the primordial seven *men *by the progenitors (the Pitris,\nor Elohim): and to that of the human groups after the fall.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Pliny, 4, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, 7, c. 108; Pausanias,\n7, c. 4, etc.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 6 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nAll this will be examined in the light of science and comparisons\ndrawn from the scriptures of all the ancient nations, the Bible\nincluded, as we proceed. Meanwhile, before we turn to the *Anthropogenesis\n*of the prehistoric Races, it may be useful to agree upon\nthe names to be given to the Continents on which the four great\nRaces, which preceded our *Adamic* Race, were born, lived,\nand died. Their archaic and esoteric names were many, and varied\nwith the language of the nationality which mentioned them in its\nannals and scriptures. That which in the Vendidad, for instance,\nis referred to as Airyanem Vaego (*see* *Bund. *79,\n12) wherein was born the original Zoroaster,* is called in the\nPuranic literature \"Sveta-Dwipa,\" \"Mount Meru,\"\nthe abode of Vishnu, etc., etc.; and in the Secret Doctrine is\nsimply named the land of the \"Gods\" under their chiefs\nthe \"Spirits of this Planet.\"\n\nTherefore, in view of the possible, and even very probable confusion,\nthat may arise, it is considered more convenient to adopt, for\neach of the four Continents constantly referred to, a name more\nfamiliar to the cultured reader. It is proposed, then, to call\nthe first continent, or rather the first *terra firma *on\nwhich the first Race was evolved by the divine progenitors: --\n\nI. \"The Imperishable Sacred Land.\"\n\nThe reasons for this name are explained as follows: This \"Sacred\nLand\" -- of which more later on -- is stated never to have\nshared the fate of the other continents; because it is the only\none whose destiny it is to last from the beginning to the end\nof the Manvantara throughout each Round. It is the cradle of the\nfirst man and the dwelling of the last *divine *mortal,\nchosen as a *Sishta *for the future seed of humanity. Of\nthis mysterious and sacred land very little can be said, except,\nperhaps, according to a poetical expression in one of the Commentaries,\nthat the \"pole-star has its watchful eye upon it, from the\ndawn to the close of the twilight of 'a day' of the GREAT BREATH.\"**\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* By \"original\" we mean the \"Amshaspend,\"\ncalled \"Zarathustra, the lord and ruler of the Vara made\nby Yima in that land.\" There were several Zarathustra or\nZertusts, the Dabistan alone enumerating thirteen; but these were\nall the reincarnations of the first one. The last Zoroaster was\nthe founder of the Fire temple of Azareksh and the writer of the\nworks on the primeval sacred Magian religion destroyed by Alexander.\n\n** In India called \"The Day of Brahma.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 7 HYPERBOREAS AND LEMURIA.\n\nII. The \"**H**YPERBOREAN\" will be the name\nchosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched out\nits promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to\nreceive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now\nknown as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest\nGreeks to the far-off and mysterious region, whither their tradition\nmade Apollo the \"Hyperborean\" travel every year. *Astronomically,\n*Apollo is of course the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic\nsanctuaries, loved to visit annually his far-away country, where\nthe Sun was said never to set for one half of the year. [[*Eggus\ngar nuktos te kai ematos eisi keleuthoi*]], says a verse in\nthe *Odyssey *(x. 86).\n\nBut* historically, *or better, perhaps, ethnologically\nand geologically, the meaning is different. The land of the Hyperboreans,\nthe country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god\nof snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain\nof Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal country, as surmised by\nthe mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia\nand the Danube.* It was a real Continent, a *bona-fide *land\nwhich knew no winter in those early days, nor have its sorry remains\nmore than one night and day during the year, even now. The nocturnal\nshadows never fall upon it, said the Greeks; for it is the *land\nof the Gods, *the favourite abode of Apollo, the god of light,\nand its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This\nmay be regarded as poetised *fiction* now; but it was poetised\n*truth* then.\n\nIII. The third Continent, we propose to call \"Lemuria.\"\nThe name is an invention, or an idea, of Mr. P. L. Sclater, who\nasserted, between 1850 and 1860, on zoological grounds the actual\nexistence, in prehistoric times, of a Continent which he showed\nto have extended from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra. It included\nsome portions of what is now Africa; but otherwise this gigantic\nContinent, which stretched from the Indian ocean to Australia,\nhas now wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific,\nleaving here and there only some of its highland tops which are\nnow islands. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the naturalist, \"extends\nthe Australia of tertiary periods to New Guinea and the Solomon\nIslands, and perhaps to Fiji;\" and from its Marsupial types\nhe infers \"a connection with the Northern Continent during\nthe\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Volcker, \"Mythological Geography,\" pp. 145 to\n170.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 8 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSecondary period,\" writes Mr. C. Gould in \"*Mythical\nMonsters,*\"* *p. 47. The subject is treated at\nlength elsewhere.*\n\nIV. \"Atlantis\" is the Fourth Continent. It would be\nthe first historical land, were the traditions of the ancients\nto receive more attention than they have hitherto. The famous\nisland of Plato of that name was but a fragment of this great\nContinent. (*See *\"*Esoteric* *Buddhism.*\")\n\nV. The Fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at\nthe Antipodes, it is Europe and Asia Minor, almost coeval with\nit, which are generally referred to by the Indo-Aryan Occultists\nas the fifth. If their teaching followed the appearance of the\nContinents in their geological and geographical order, then this\nclassification would have to be altered. But as the sequence of\nthe Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the\nRaces, from the first to the fifth, our Aryan Root-race, Europe\nmust be called the fifth great Continent. The Secret Doctrine\ntakes no account of islands and peninsulas, nor does it follow\nthe modern geographical distribution of land and sea. Since the\nday of its earliest teachings and the destruction of the great\nAtlantis, the face of the earth has changed more than once. There\nwas a time when the delta of Egypt and Northern Africa belonged\nto Europe, before the formation of the Straits of Gibraltar, and\na further upheaval of the continent, changed entirely the face\nof the map of Europe. The last serious change occurred some 12,000\nyears ago,**\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* It is to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept\nMr. Sclater's idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes\na land or continent formerly uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India\n(but not Australia and India); and Mr. A. R. Wallace shows, in\nhis \"*Geographical Distribution of Animals*\"*\n*and \"*Island Life,*\" that the hypothesis\nof such a land is quite uncalled for on the alleged zoological\ngrounds. But he admits that a much closer proximity of India and\nAustralia did certainly exist, and at a time so very remote that\nit was \"certainly pre-tertiary,\" and he adds in a private\nletter that \"no name has been given to this supposed land.\"\nYet the land did exist, and was of course *pre-tertiary, *for\n\"Lemuria\" (accepting this name for the third Continent)\nhad perished before Atlantis had fully developed; and the latter\nsunk and its chief portions had disappeared before the end of\nthe Miocene period.\n\n** One more \"coincidence\" --\n\n\"Now it is proved that in geologically recent times, *this\nregion of North Africa was in* *fact a peninsula of Spain,\n*and that its union with Africa (proper) was effected on the\nNorth by the rupture of Gibraltar, and on the South by an *upheaval\nto which the Sahara* *owes its existence. *The shores\nof this former sea of Sahara are still marked by the shells [[Footnote\ncontinued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 9 PRE-TERTIARY GIANTS.\n\nand was followed by the submersion of Plato's little Atlantic\nisland, which he calls Atlantis after its parent continent. Geography\nwas part of the mysteries, in days of old. Says the *Zohar\n*(iii., fol. 10*a*): \"These secrets (of land and\nsea) were divulged *to the men of the secret science*,\nbut not to the geographers.\"\n\nThe claim that physical man was originally a colossal pre-tertiary\ngiant, and that he existed 18,000,000 years ago, must of course\nappear preposterous to admirers of, and believers in, modern learning.\nThe whole *posse comitatis *of biologists will turn away\nfrom the conception of this third race Titan of the Secondary\nage, a being fit to fight as successfully with the then gigantic\nmonsters of the air, sea, and land, as his forefathers -- the\nethereal prototype of the Atlantean -- had little need to fear\nthat which could not hurt him. The modern anthropologist is quite\nwelcome to laugh at our Titans, as he laughs at the Biblical Adam,\nand as the theologian laughs at his pithecoid ancestor. The Occultists\nand their severe critics may feel that they have pretty well mutually\nsquared their accounts by this time. Occult sciences claim less\nand give more, at all events, than either Darwinian Anthropology\nor Biblical Theology.\n\nNor ought the Esoteric Chronology to frighten any one; for, with\nregard to figures, the greatest authorities of the day are as\nfickle and as uncertain as the Mediterranean wave. As regards\nthe duration of the geological periods alone, the learned men\nof the Royal Society are all hopelessly at sea, and jump from\none million to five hundred millions of years with the utmost\nease, as will be seen more than once during this comparison.\n\nTake one instance for our present purpose -- the calculations\nof Mr. Croll. Whether, according to this authority, 2,500,000\nyears represent the time since the beginning of the tertiary age,\nor the Eocene period, as an American geologist makes him say;*\nor whether again Mr. Croll \"allows fifteen millions since\nthe beginning of the Eocene period,\" as quoted by an English\ngeologist,** both sets of figures cover the claims\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] of the same Gastropoda\nthat live on the shores of the Mediterranean.\" (Prof. Oscar\nSchmidt, \"*Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,*\"\np.* *244.)\n\n* A. Winchell, Professor of Geology,* *\"*World-Life,*\"*\n*p. 369.\n\n** Mr. Charles Gould, late Geological surveyor of Tasmania, in\n\"*Mythical Monsters,*\" p. 84.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 10 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmade by the Secret Doctrine.* For assigning as the latter does\nfrom four to five million years between the incipient and the\nfinal evolution of the Fourth Root-Race, on the Lemuro-Atlantean\nContinents; one million years for the Fifth, or Aryan Race, to\nthe present date; and about 850,000 since the submersion of the\nlast large peninsula of the great Atlantis -- all this may have\neasily taken place within the 15,000,000 years conceded by Mr.\nCroll to the Tertiary Age. But, *chronologically *speaking,\nthe duration of the period is of secondary importance, as we have,\nafter all, certain American scientists to fall back upon. These\ngentlemen, unmoved by the fact that their assertions are called\nnot only dubious but absurd, yet maintain that man existed so\nfar back as in the Secondary Age. They have found human footprints\non rocks of that formation; and furthermore, M. de Quatrefages\nfinds no valid *scientific *reason why man should not have\nexisted during the Secondary Age.\n\nThe \"Ages\" and periods in geology are, in sober truth,\npurely conventional terms, as they are still hardly delineated,\nand, moreover,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Sir Charles Lyell, who is credited with having \"*happily\n*invented the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene,\" to\nmark the three divisions of the Tertiary age, ought really to\nhave settled upon some approximate age for his \"Mind-offspring.\"\nHaving left the duration of these periods, however, to the speculations\nof specialists, the greatest confusion and perplexity are the\nresult of that happy thought. It seems like a hopeless task to\nquote one set of figures from one work, without the risk of finding\nit contradicted by the same Author in an earlier or a subsequent\nvolume. Sir W. Thomson, one of the most eminent among the modern\nauthorities, has changed, about half-a-dozen times, his opinion\nupon the age of the Sun and the date of the consolidation of the\nEarth's crust. In Thomson and Tait's \"*Natural Philosophy,*\"*\n*one finds only ten million years allowed, since the time\nwhen the temperature of the Earth permitted vegetable life to\nappear on it; (*App. D et seq. also Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.\n*xxiii, *Pt.* 1, 157, 1862, where 847 is cancelled).\nMr. Darwin gives Sir W. Thomson's estimate as \"a minimum\nof 98 and a maximum of 200 millions of years since the consolidation\nof the crust\" (See Ch. Gould). In the same work (*Nat.\nPhil.*)* *80 millions are given from the time of incipient\nincrustation to the present state of the world. And in his last\nlecture, as shown elsewhere, Sir W. Thomson declares (1887) that\nthe Sun is not older than 15 *millions *of years! Meanwhile,\nbasing his arguments as to the limits to the age of the Sun's\nheat, on figures previously established by Sir W. Thomson, Mr.\nCroll allows 60* millions *of years since the beginning\nof the Cambrian period. This is hopeful for the lovers of *exact\n*knowledge. Thus, whatever figures are given by Occult Science,\nthey are sure to be corroborated by those of some one among the\nmodern men of Science who are considered as authorities.\n\n[[Vol. 2, Page]] 11 THE TROPICS AT THE POLE.\n\nno two geologists or naturalists agree as to the figures. Thus,\nthere is a wide margin for choice offered to the Occultist by\nthe learned fraternity. Shall we take for one of our supports\nMr. T. Mellard Reade? This gentleman, in a paper on \"Limestone\nas an Index of Geological Time,\" read by him in 1878 before\nthe Royal Society, claims that the *minimum *time required\nfor the formation of the sedimentary *strata* and the elimination\nof the calcareous matter is in round numbers 600 million years\n(*See *\"*Proceedings of Royal Society,*\"*\nLondon, *Vol.** ****XXVIII**., p. 281); or\nshall we ask support for our chronology from Mr. Darwin's works,\nwherein he demands for the organic transformations according to\nhis theory from 300 to 500 million years? Sir C. Lyell and Prof.\nHoughton were satisfied with placing the beginning of the Cambrian\nAge at 200 and 240 millions of years back respectively. Geologists\nand zoologists claim the maximum time, though Mr. Huxley, at one\ntime, placed the beginning of the incrustation of the earth 1,000\nmillion years ago, and would not surrender a millennium of it.\n\nBut the main point for us lies not in the agreement or disagreement\nof the Naturalists as to the duration of geological periods, but\nrather in their perfect accord on one point, for a wonder, and\nthis a very important one. They all agree that during \"The\nMiocene Age\" -- whether one or ten million years ago -- Greenland\nand even Spitzbergen, the remnants of our Second or Hyperborean\nContinent, \"had *almost a tropical climate.*\"*\n*Now the pre-Homeric Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition\nof this \"Land of the Eternal Sun,\" whither their Apollo\njourneyed yearly. \"During the Miocene Age, Greenland (in\nN. Lat. 70 degrees) developed an abundance of trees, such as the\nYew, the Redwood, the Sequoia, allied to the Californian species,\nBeeches, Planes, Willows, Oaks, Poplars and Walnuts, as well as\na Magnolia and a Zamia,\" says Science; in short Greenland\nhad Southern plants unknown to Northern regions.\n\nAnd now this natural question rises. If the Greeks knew, in the\ndays of Homer, of a Hyperborean land,* i.e.,* a blessed\nland beyond the reach of Boreas, the god of winter and of the\nhurricane, an ideal region which the later Greeks and their classics\nhave vainly tried to locate by searching for it beyond Scythia,\na country where nights were short and days long, and beyond that\nland a country where the sun never set and the palm grew freely\n-- if they knew of all this, who then told them of it? In\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 12 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ntheir day, and for ages previously, Greenland must certainly have\nbeen already covered with perpetual snows, with never-thawing\nice, just as it is now. Everything tends to show that the land\nof the short nights and the long days was Norway or Scandinavia,\n*beyond *which was the blessed land of eternal light and\nsummer; and to know of this, their tradition must have descended\nto the Greeks from some people more ancient than themselves, who\nwere acquainted with those climatic details of which the Greeks\nthemselves could know nothing. Even in our day, science suspects\nbeyond the Polar seas, at the very circle of the Arctic Pole,\nthe existence of a sea which never freezes and a continent which\nis ever green. The archaic teachings, and likewise the Puranas\n-- for one who understands the allegories of the latter -- contain\nthe same statements. Suffice, then, to us the strong probability\nthat a people, now unknown to history, lived during the Miocene\nperiod of modern science, at a time when Greenland was an almost\ntropical land.\n\n-------\n\n**N**OTE. The reader is requested to bear in mind\nthat the first and the following sections are not strictly consecutive\nin order of time. In the first Section the Stanzas which form\nthe skeleton of the exposition are given, and certain important\npoints commented upon and explained. In the subsequent sections\nvarious additional details are gathered, and a fuller explanation\nof the subject is attempted.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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