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    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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    "num": 12,
    "slug": "62-edens-serpents-and-dragons-202",
    "title": "EDENS, SERPENTS AND DRAGONS ... 202",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 9285,
    "text": "## EDENS, SERPENTS AND DRAGONS ... 202\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, part 1, \"Edens\"\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 202 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n**E**DENS, **S**ERPENTS, AND **D**RAGONS.\n\nWhence the idea, and the true meaning of the term \"Eden\"?\nChristians will maintain that the Garden of Eden is the holy Paradise,\nthe place *desecrated by the sin *of Adam and Eve; the\nOccultist will deny this dead-letter interpretation, and show\nthe reverse. One need not believe and see in the Bible divine\nrevelation in order to say that this ancient book, if read esoterically,\nis based upon the same universal traditions. What Eden was is\npartially shown in *Isis Unveiled.**\n\nIt was said that: \"The Garden of Eden as a locality is no\nmyth at all; it belongs to those landmarks of history which occasionally\ndisclose to the student that the *Bible *is not all mere\nallegory. Eden, or the Hebrew\nGan-Eden, meaning the park or the garden of Eden, is an archaic\nname of the country watered by the Euphrates and its many branches,\nfrom Asia and Armenia to the Erythraean sea.\" (A. Wilder\nsays that Gan-duniyas is a name of Babylonia.) In the Chaldean\n\"*Book of Numbers,*\"* *the location is\ndesignated in numerals, and in the cypher Rosicrucian manuscript,\nleft by Count St. Germain, it is fully described. In the Assyrian\n*Tablets *it is rendered *Ganduniyas. *\"Behold,\"\nsays the (*Elohim*)*\n*of Genesis, \"the man is become as one of us.\" The\n*Elohim *may be accepted in one sense for *gods *or\npowers, and in another for *Aleim, *or priests -- the hierophants\ninitiated into the good and evil of this world; for there was\na college of priests called the *Aleim, *while the head\nof their caste, or the chief of the hierophants was known as *Java-Aleim.\n*Instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his\nesoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an *Adam,\n*or Man, uses his intuitional faculties and, prompted by the\nserpent (*Woman *and matter), tastes of the Tree of Knowledge\n-- the esoteric or Secret Doctrine -- unlawfully. The priests\nof Hercules, or Mel-karth, the \"Lord of the Eden,\" all\nwore \"coats of skin.\" The text says: \"And *Java-Aleim\n*made for Adam and his wife\n'Chitonuth our.' \" The first Hebrew word, \"*chiton,*\"*\n*is the Greek [[*Chiton*]], *Chiton. *It became\na Slavonic word by adoption from the *Bible, *and means\na *coat, *an upper garment.\n\n\"Though containing the same substratum of esoteric truth\nas does every early Cosmogony, the Hebrew Scripture wears on its\nface the marks of a double origin. Its Genesis is purely a reminiscence\nof the Babylonian captivity. The names of places, men and even\nobjects, can be traced from the original text to the Chaldeans\nand the Akkadians, the progenitors and Aryan instructors of the\nformer. It is strongly contested that the Akkad tribes of Chaldea,\nBabylonia and Assyria were in\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Vol. I., pp. 575, *et seq.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 203 THE GARDEN OF EDEN, A COLLEGE.\n\nany way cognate with the Brahmans of Hindostan; but there are\nmore proofs in favour of this opinion than otherwise. The Shemite\nor Assyrian ought, perchance, to have been called the Turanian,\nand the Mongolians have been denominated Scyths. But if the Akkadians\never existed, otherwise than in the imagination of some ethnologists\nand philologists, they certainly would never have been a Turanian\ntribe, as some Assyriologists have striven to make us believe.\nThey were simply emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India,\nthe cradle of humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tarried to\ncivilize and initiate a barbarian people. Halevy proved the fallacy\nof the Turanian mania in regard to Akkadian people, and other\nscientists have proved that the Babylonian civilization was neither\nborn nor developed in that country. It was imported from India,\nand the importers were Brahminical Hindus.\"\n\nAnd now, ten years after this was written, we find ourselves corroborated\nby Professor Sayce, who says in his first Hibbert lecture that\nthe culture of the Babylonian city Eridu was of *foreign importation.\nIt *came from India.\n\n\"Much of the theology was borrowed by the Semites from the\nnon-Semitic Akkadians or proto-Chaldeans, whom they supplanted,\nand whose local cults they had neither the will nor the power\nto uproot. Indeed, throughout a long course of ages the two races,\nSemites and Akkadians, lived side by side, their notions and worship\nof the gods blending insensibly together.\"\n\nHere, the Akkadians are called \"non-Semitic,\" as we\nhad insisted they were in \"*Isis,*\"* *which\nis another corroboration. And we are no less right in always maintaining\nthat the Jewish Biblical history was a compilation of *historical\n*facts, arranged from other people's history in Jewish garb\n-- Genesis excluded, which is esotericism pure and simple. But\nit is really from the Euxine to Kashmir and beyond, that science\nhas to search for the cradle -- or rather one of the chief cradles\n-- of mankind and the sons of Ad-ah; and especially in after times,\nwhen the Garden of Ed-en on the Euphrates became the college of\nthe astrologers and magi, the Aleim.\n\nBut this \"college\" and this Eden belong to the Fifth\nRace, and are simply a faint reminiscence of the Adi-varsha, of\nthe primeval Third Race. What is the etymological meaning of the\nword *Eden? *In Greek it is [*hedone*], signifying*\nvoluptuousness. *In this aspect it is no better than the Olympus\nof the Greeks, Indra's heaven (Swarga) on Mount Meru, and even\nthe paradise full of *Houris, *promised by Mahomet to the\nfaithful. The Garden of Eden was never the property of the Jews;\nfor China, which can hardly be suspected of having known anything\nof the Jews 2,000 **B.C**., has such a primitive garden in\nCentral Asia inhabited by the \"Dragons of Wisdom,\" the\nInitiates. And according to Klaproth,\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 204 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe hieroglyphical chart copied from a Japanese Cyclopaedia in\nthe book *of Fo-kone-ky, *places its \"Garden of Wisdom\"\non the plateau of Pamir between the highest peaks of the Himalayan\nranges; and describing it as the culminating point of Central\nAsia, shows the four rivers -- Oxus, Indus, Ganges, and Silo --\nflowing from a common source, the \"*Lake of the Dragons.*\"\n\nBut this is not the Genetic Eden; nor is it the Kabalistical Garden\nof Eden. For the former -- *Eden Illa-ah *-- means in one\nsense Wisdom, a state like that of Nirvana, a paradise of Bliss;\nwhile in another sense it refers to Intellectual man himself,\nthe container of the Eden in which grows the tree of Knowledge\nof good and evil: man being the *Knower *thereof.\n\nRenan and Barthelemy St. Hilaire, basing themselves \"on the\nmost solid inductions,\" think it impossible to doubt any\nlonger, and both place the cradle of humanity \"on the region\nof the Timaus.\" Finally, the Asiatic Journal* concludes that:\n\"All the traditions of the human race gathering its primitive\nfamilies at the region of their birth-place, show them to us grouped\naround the countries where Jewish tradition places the Garden\nof Eden; where the Aryans (Zoroastrians) established their Airyana-vaego\nor the Meru (?). They are hemmed in to the North by the countries\nwhich join the lake Aral, and to the South by Baltistan, or Little\nTibet. Everything concurs in proving that there was the abode\nof that primitive humanity to which we have to be traced.\"\n\nThat \"primitive humanity\" was in its Fifth Race, when\nthe \"four-mouthed Dragon,\" the lake, of which very few\ntraces are now left, was the abode of the \"Sons of Wisdom,\"\nthe first mind-born sons of the Third Race. Yet it was neither\nthe only one nor the primitive cradle of humanity, though it was\nthe copy of the cradle, verily, of the first thinking *divine\n*man. It was the *Paradesa, *the highland of the first\nSanskrit-speaking people, the *Hedone, *the country of\ndelight of the Greeks, but it was not the \"*bower *of\nvoluptuousness\" of the Chaldeans, for the latter was only\nthe reminiscence of it; and also because it was not there that\nthe *Fall of Man *occurred after the \"separation.\"\nThe Eden of the Jews was *copied *from the Chaldean *copy.*\n\nThat the Fall of man into generation occurred during the earliest\nportion of what science calls the Mesozoic times, or the age of\nthe reptiles, is evidenced by the Bible phraseology concerning\nthe serpent, the nature of which is explained in the *Zohar.\n*The question is not whether Eve's incident with the tempting\nreptile is allegorical or textual, for no one can doubt that it\nis the former, but to show the antiquity of the symbolism on the\nvery face of it, and that it was not only a Jewish but an universal\nidea.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*Journal Asiatique,*\"* *seventh\nyear, 1855.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 205 FLYING CAMELS.\n\nNow we find in the *Zohar *a very strange assertion, one\nthat is calculated to provoke the reader to merry laughter by\nits ludicrous absurdity. It tells us that the serpent, which was\nused by *Shamael *(the supposed Satan), to seduce Eve,\nwas a kind of *flying camel [[*kamelomorphon]].\n\nA \"flying camel\" is indeed too much for the most liberal-minded\n**F.R.S**. Nevertheless, the *Zohar, *which can hardly\nbe expected to use the language of a Cuvier, was right in its\ndescription:* for we find it called in the old Zoroastrian **MSS**.\n*Aschmogh, *which in the Avesta is represented as having\nlost after the Fall \"its *nature and its name,*\"*\n*and is described as a huge serpent with a camel's neck.\n\n\"There are no winged serpents, nor veritable dragons,\"\nasserts Salverte,** \" . . . grasshoppers are called by the\nGreeks *winged serpents, *and this metaphor may have created\nseveral narratives on the existence of winged serpents.\"\n\nThere are none *now*; but there is no reason why they should\nnot have existed during the Mesozoic age; and Cuvier, who has\nreconstructed their skeletons, is a witness to \"flying camels.\"\nAlready, after finding simple fossils of certain saurians, the\ngreat naturalist has written, that, \"if anything can justify\nthe Hydra and other monsters, whose figures were so often repeated\nby mediaeval historians, it is incontestably the *Plesiosaurus.*\"***\n\nWe are unaware if Cuvier had added anything in the way of a further\n*mea culpa. *But we may well imagine his confusion, for\nall his slanders against archaic veracity, when he found himself\nin the presence of a *flying *saurian, \"the Pterodactyl\"\n(found in Germany), \"78 feet long, and carrying vigorous\nwings attached to its reptilian body.\" That fossil is described\nas a reptile, the *little fingers of whose hands *are so\nelongated as to bear a long membranous wing. Here, then, the \"flying\ncamel\" of the Zohar is vindicated. For surely, between the\nlong neck of the Plesiosaurus and the membranous wing of the Pterodactyl,\nor still better the Mosasaurus, there is enough scientific probability\nto build a \"flying camel,\" or a long-necked dragon.\nProf. Cope, of Philadelphia, has shown that the Mosasaurus fossil\nin the chalk was a *winged serpent of *this kind. There\nare characters in its vertebrae, which indicate union with the\nOphidia rather than with the Lacertilia.\n\nAnd now to the main question. It is well known that Antiquity\nhas never claimed palaeontography and paleontology among its arts\nand sciences; and it never had its Cuviers. Yet on Babylonian\ntiles, and especially in old Chinese and Japanese drawings, in\nthe oldest Pagodas\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Moses Maimonides, \"*More Nevochim.*\"\n\n*** *\"*Science Occulte,*\"* *p.\n646.\n\n**** *\"*Revolution du Globe,*\"* *vol.\nv., p. 464.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 206 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand monuments, and in the Imperial library at Pekin, many a traveller\nhas seen and recognised perfect representations of Plesiosauri\nand Pterodactyls in the multiform Chinese dragons.* Moreover,\nthe prophets speak in the Bible of the flying fiery serpents,**\nand Job mentions the Leviathan.*** Now the following questions\nare put very directly: --\n\nI. How could the ancient nations know anything of the extinct\nmonsters of the carboniferous and Mesozoic times, and even represent\nand describe them orally and pictorially, unless they had either\n*seen those monsters themselves or possessed descriptions of\nthem in their traditions, *which descriptions necessitate\n*living and intelligent eye-witnesses?*\n\nII. And if such eye-witnesses are once admitted (unless retrospective\nclairvoyance is granted), how can humanity and the first palaeolithic\nmen be no earlier than about the middle of the tertiary period?\nWe must bear in mind that most of the men of science will not\nallow man to have appeared before the Quaternary period, and thus\nshut him out completely from the Cenozoic times. Here we have\nextinct species of animals, which disappeared from the face of\nthe Earth millions of years ago, described by, and known to, nations\nwhose civilization, it is said, could hardly have begun a few\nthousand years ago. How is this? Evidently either the Mesozoic\ntime has to be made to overlap the Quaternary period, or man must\nbe made the contemporary of the Pterodactyl and the Plesiosaurus.\n\nIt does not stand to reason, because the Occultists believe in\nand defend ancient wisdom and science, even though winged saurians\nare called \"flying camels\" in the translations of the\n*Zohar, *that we believe as readily in all the stories\nwhich the middle ages give us of such dragons. Pterodactyls and\nPlesiosauri ceased to exist with the bulk\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* We read in the \"*Memoire a l*'*Academie*\"*\n*of the \"naive astonishment of Geoffrey St. Hilaire,\nwhen M. de Paravey showed to him in some old Chinese works and\nBabylonian tiles dragons, . . . . saurians and ornithorhynchuses\n(aquatic animals *found only in Australia*)*, *etc.,\nextinct animals that he had thought unknown on earth. . . . till\nhis own day.\"\n\n** See *Isaiah, *xxx. 6: \"The viper and the flying\nserpent unto the land of trouble and anguish,\" and the fiery\nserpents conquered by the brazen serpent of Moses.\n\n*** The fossils reconstructed by science, which we know ought\nto be sufficient warrant for the possibility of even a *Leviathan,\n*let alone Isaiah's flying serpents, or *saraph mehophep,\n*which words are translated in all the Hebrew dictionaries\nas \"saraph,\" enflamed or fiery venom, and \"mehophep,\"\n*flying*. But, although Christian theology has always connected\nboth (*Leviathan and saraph mehophep*)* *with the\ndevil, the expressions are metaphorical and have nought to do\nwith the \"evil one.\" But the word *Dracon *has\nbecome a synonym for the latter. In Bretagne the word *Drouk\n*now signifies \"devil,\" whence, as we are told by\nCambry (\"*Monuments Celtiques,*\"* *p.\n299), the devil's tomb in England, *Draghedanum sepulcrum.\n*In Languedoc the meteoric fires and *will-o*'*-the-wisps\n*are called *Dragg*, and in Bretagne Dreag, *Wraie\n*(or wraith), the castle of Drogheda in Ireland meaning the\ndevil's castle.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 207 KIRCHER'S DRAGON.\n\nof the Third Race. When, therefore, we are gravely asked by Roman\nCatholic writers to credit Christopher Scherer's and Father Kircher's\ncock-and-bull stories of their having seen with their own eyes\nliving fiery and flying dragons, respectively in 1619 and 1669,\nwe may be allowed to regard their assertions as either dreams\nor fibs.* Nor shall we regard otherwise than as a *poetical\nlicense *that other story told of Petrarch, who, while following\none day his Laura in the woods and passing near a cave, is credited\nwith having found a dragon, whom he forthwith stabbed with his\ndagger and killed, thus preventing the monster from devouring\nthe lady of his heart.** We would willingly believe the story\nhad Petrarch lived in the days of Atlantis, when such antediluvian\nmonsters may still have existed. We deny their existence in our\npresent era. The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another.\nThe former is denied by the majority because it exists and lives\nin the very depths of the ocean, is very scarce, and rises to\nthe surface only when compelled, perhaps, by hunger. Thus keeping\ninvisible, it may exist and still be denied. But if there was\nsuch a thing as a dragon of the above description, how could it\nhave ever escaped detection? It is a creature contemporary with\nthe earliest Fifth Race, and exists no more.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The ultramontane writers accept the whole series of draconian\nstories given by Father Kircher (*Edipus AEgyptiacus, *\"*De\nGenere Draconum,*\")* *quite seriously. According\nto that Jesuit, he himself saw a dragon which was killed in 1669\nby a Roman peasant, as the director of the Museo Barberini sent\nit to him, to take the beast's likeness, which Father Kircher\ndid and had it published in one of his *in-folios. *After\nthis he received a letter from Christopher Scherer, Prefect of\nthe Canton of Soleure, Switzerland, in which that official certifies\nto his having seen himself *with his own eyes, *one fine\nsummer night in 1619, a living dragon. Having remained on his\nbalcony \"to contemplate the perfect purity of the firmament,\"\nhe writes, \"I saw a fiery, shining dragon rise from one of\nthe caves of Mount Pilatus and direct itself rapidly towards Fluelen\nto the other end of the lake. Enormous in size, his tail was still\nlonger and his neck very extended. His head and jaws were those\nof a serpent. In flying he emitted on his way numerous sparks\n(? !) . . . . I thought at first I was seeing a meteor, but soon\nlooking more attentively, I was convinced by his flight and the\nconformation of his body that I saw a *veritable dragon. *I\nam happy to be thus able to enlighten your Reverence on the *very\nreal *existence of those animals\"; in *dreams, *the\nwriter ought to have added, of long past ages.\n\n** As a convincing proof of the reality of the fact, a Roman Catholic\nrefers the reader to the picture of that incident painted by Simon\nde Sienne, a friend of the poet, on the portal of the Church *Notre\nDame du Don *at Avignon; notwithstanding the prohibition of\nthe Sovereign Pontiff, who \"would not allow this triumph\nof love to be enthroned in the holy place\"; and adds: \"Time\nhas injured and rubbed out the work of art, but has not weakened\nits tradition.\" De Mirville's \"Dragon-Devils\" of\nour era seem to have no luck, as they disappear most mysteriously\nfrom the museums where they are said to have been. Thus the dragon\nembalmed by Ulysses Aldobranda and presented to the Musee du Senat,\neither in Naples or Bologna, \"was there still in 1700, but\nis there no more.\" (*Vol. 2, p. 427, \"Pneumatologie.*\")\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 208 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThe reader may inquire why we speak of dragons at all? We answer:\n*firstly, *because the knowledge of such animals is a proof\nof the enormous antiquity of the human race; and *secondly,\n*to show the difference between the zoological real meaning\nof the words \"dragon,\" \"*Naga,*\"*\n*and \"Serpent,\" and the metaphorical one, when used\nsymbolically. The profane reader, who knows nothing of the mystery\nlanguage, is likely, whenever he finds one of these words mentioned,\nto accept it literally. Hence, the *quid pro quos *and\nunjust accusations. A couple of instances will suffice.\n\n*Sed et serpens? *aye: but what was the nature of the serpent?\nMystics intuitionally see in the serpent of *Genesis *an\nanimal emblem and a high spiritual essence: a cosmic force superintelligent,\na \"great fallen light,\" a spirit sidereal, aerial and\ntellurian at the same time, \"whose influence circumambulates\nthe globe (*qui circumambulat terram*)*, *as a Christian\nfanatic of the dead-letter (de Mirville) has it, and which only\nmanifested itself under the physical emblem, which was the most\nconvenient \"with respect to its moral and intellectual *coils*\"*:\ni.e. *under the ophidian form.\n\nBut what will Christians make of the Brazen Serpent, the \"DIVINE\nHEALER,\" if the serpent is to be regarded as the emblem of\ncunning and evil? The \"Evil One\" itself? How can the\nline of demarcation ever be settled, when it is traced arbitrarily\nin a sectarian theological spirit. For, if the followers of the\nRoman Church are taught that Mercury and AEsculapius, or Asclepios,\nwho are, in truth, one, are \"devils and sons of devils,\"\nand the wand and serpent of the latter were \"the devil's\nwand\"; how about the \"brazen serpent\" of Moses?\nEvery scholar knows that both the *heathen *wand and the\nJewish \"serpent\" are one and the same, namely, the *Caduceus\nof Mercury,* son of **A**POLLO-PYTHON. It is\neasy to comprehend why the Jews adopted the ophidian shape for\ntheir \"seducer.\" With them it was purely *physiological\nand phallic*;* *and no amount of casuistical reasoning\non the part of the Roman Catholic Church can give it another meaning,\nonce that the mystery language is well studied, and that the Hebrew\nscrolls are read numerically. The Occultists know that the serpent,\nthe *Naga, *and the dragon have each a septenary meaning;\nthat the Sun, for instance, was the *astronomical *and\ncosmic emblem of the two contrasted lights, and the two serpents\nof the Gnostics, the good and the evil one; they also know that,\nwhen *generalised, *the conclusions of both science and\ntheology present two most ridiculous extremes. For, when the former\ntells us that it is sufficient to trace the legends of the serpents\nto their primal source, the astrological legend, and to meditate\nseriously on the *Sun*, conqueror of Python, and the celestial\nvirgin in the Zodiac forcing back the devouring dragon, if we\nwould have the key of all the subsequent religious dogmas; it\nis easy to perceive that, instead of\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 209 COBRAS AS SYMBOLS.\n\ngeneralising, the author simply has his eye on Christian religion\nand *Revelation. *We call this one extreme. The other we\nsee in this: when, repeating the famous decision of the Council\nof Trent, theology seeks to convince the masses that \"from\nthe fall of man until the hour of his baptism the devil has full\npower over him, and *possesses him by right *(*diabolum\ndominationem et potestatem super homines habere et jure cos possidere*).\"*\n*To this Occult philosophy answers: Prove first the existence\nof the devil *as an entity, *and then we may believe in\nsuch congenital possession. A very small amount of observation\nand knowledge of human nature may be sufficient to prove the fallacy\nof this theological dogma. Had **S**ATAN any reality,\nin the objective or even subjective world (in the ecclesiastical\nsense), it is the poor devil who would find himself chronically\nobsessed and even possessed by the wicked -- hence by the bulk\nof mankind. It is humanity itself, and especially the clergy,\nheaded by the haughty, unscrupulous and intolerant Roman Church,\nwhich have begotten, given birth to, and reared in love the evil\none; but this is a digression.\n\n\"The whole world of thought is reproached by the Church with\nhaving adored the serpent. The whole of humanity 'incensed and\nat the same time stoned it.' The Zend Avesta speaks of it as the\nKings and Vedas do, as the Edda and the Bible. . . . Everywhere\nthe sacred serpent, the naga, and its shrine and its priest; in\nRome it is the Vestal who prepares its meal with the same care\nas she bestows on the sacred fire. In Greece, AEsculapius cannot\ncure without its assistance, and delegates to it his powers. Everyone\nhas heard of the famous Roman embassy sent by the Senate to the\ngod of medicine and its return with the not less famous serpent,\nwhich proceeded of its own will and by itself toward its Master's\ntemple on one of the islands of the Tiber. Not a Bacchante that\ndid not wind it (the serpent) in her hair, not an Augur but questioned\nit oracularly, not a necromancer whose tomb is free from its presence!\nThe Cainites and the Ophites call it Creator, while recognizing,\nas Schelling did, that the serpent is 'evil in substance and its\npersonification.' \"*\n\nYes, the author is right, and if one would have a complete idea\nof the prestige which the serpent enjoys to our own day, one ought\nto study the matter in India and learn all that is believed about,\nand still attributed to, the *Nagas *(Cobras) in that country;\none should also visit the Africans of Whydah, the Voodoos of Port-au-Prince\nand Jamaica, the Nagals of Mexico, and the Pa, or men-serpents\nof China, &c. But why wonder that the serpent is \"adored\"\nand at the same time cursed, since we\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Sacred Serpents\" on p. 432 of de Mirville's \"*Memoire.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 210 THE SECRET DOCTRINE\n\nknow that from the beginning it was a symbol?* In every ancient\nlanguage the word *dragon *signified what it now does in\nChinese -- (*lang*) *i.e., *\"*the being\nwho excels in intelligence*\"* *and in Greek [[*drakon*]],\nor \"he who sees and watches.\" And is it to the animal\nof that name that any of these epithets can apply? Is it not evident,\nwherever superstition and oblivion of the primitive meaning may\nhave led savages now, that the said qualifications were intended\nto apply to the human originals, who were symbolized by serpents\nand dragons? These \"originals\" -- called to this day\nin China \"the Dragons of Wisdom\" -- were the first disciples\nof the Dhyanis, who were their instructors; in short, the primitive\nadepts of the Third Race, and later, of the Fourth and Fifth Races.\nThe name became universal, and no sane man before the Christian\nera would ever have confounded the man and the symbol.\n\nThe symbol of Chnouphis, or the soul of the world, writes Champollion,\n\"is among others that of an enormous serpent standing on\nhuman legs; this reptile, the emblem of the good genius, is a\n*veritable Agathodaemon. *It is often represented bearded.\n. . . . That sacred animal, identical with the serpent of the\nOphites, is found engraved on numerous Gnostic or Basilidean stones\n. . . . The serpent has various heads, but is constantly inscribed\nwith the letters [[*CHNOUBIS*]].\"** Agathodaemon was\nendowed \"with the knowledge of good and evil,\" *i.e.*,\nwith divine Wisdom, as without the former the latter is impossible.***\nRepeating Iamblichus, Champollion shows him to be \"the deity\ncalled [[*Eichton]] *(or the fire of the celestial gods\n-- the great **** Thot-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* This is about as just as though -- a few millenniums hence --\na fanatic of some future new creed, who was bent on glorifying\n*his* religion at the expense of *ancient *Christianity,\nwere to say: \"Everywhere the quadruped lamb was adored. The\nnun placed it, calling it the Agnus, on her bosom; the priest\nlaid it on the altar. It figured in every paschal meal, and was\nglorified loudly in every temple. And yet the Christians dreaded\nit and hated it, for they slew and devoured it. . . .\" Heathens,\nat any rate, do not eat their sacred symbols. We know of no serpent,\nor reptile-eaters except in Christian civilized countries, where\nthey begin with frogs and eels, and must end with real snakes,\nas they have begun with lamb and ended with horse-flesh.\n\n*** *\"*Pantheon,*\"* 3. *\n\n*** The solar Chnouphis, or *Agathodaemon, *is the Christos\nof the Gnostics, as every scholar knows. He is intimately connected\nwith the seven sons of Sophia (Wisdom), the seven sons of Aditi\n(universal Wisdom), her eighth being Marttanda, the Sun, which\nseven are the seven planetary regents or genii. Therefore Chnouphis\nwas the *spiritual Sun of Enlightenment,* of Wisdom, hence\nthe patron of all the Egyptian Initiates, as Bel-Merodach (or\nBel-Belitanus) became later with the Chaldeans.\n\n**** Hermes, or rather Thot, was a generic name. Abul Teda shows\nin \"*Historia Anti-Islamitica*\"* *five\nHermes, and the names of Hermes, Nebo, Thot were given respectively\nin various countries to great Initiates. Thus *Nebo, *the\nson of Merodach and Zarpanitu (whom Herodotus calls Zeus-Belos),\ngave his name to all the great prophets, seers and Initiates.\nThey were all \"serpents of Wisdom,\" as connected with\nthe Sun astronomically, and with Wisdom spiritually.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 211 TWO SCHOOLS OF MAGIC.\n\nHermes), to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention\nof magic.\"*\n\nThe \"*invention of* *magic!*\" A strange\nterm to use, as though the unveiling of the eternal and actual\nmysteries of nature could be *invented*! As well attribute,\nmillenniums hence, the *invention *instead of the discovery\nof radiant matter to Prof. Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor,\nor even the discoverer, for, as said in the foot-note, Thot-Hermes\nis a generic name, as is Enoch (Enoichion, the \"inner, spiritual\neye\")*, Nebo,* the prophet and seer, etc. It is not\nthe proper name of any one living man, but a generic title of\nmany adepts. Their connection in symbolic allegories with the\nserpent is due to their enlightenment by the solar and planetary\ngods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are\nall the representative patrons of the Secret Wisdom. Asclepios\nis the son of the Sun-god Apollo -- and he is Mercury; Nebo is\nthe son of Bel-Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is\nthe son of Vivisvat -- the Sun or Surya, etc., etc. And while,\nastronomically, the Nagas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas,\nApsarasas, Gramanis (or Yakshas, minor gods) Yatudhanas and Devas,\nare the Sun's attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in\ntheogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they are gods\nand men -- when incarnated in the *nether* world. Let the\nreader be reminded, in this connection, of the fact that Apollonius\nmet in Kashmir Buddhist *Nagas -*- which are neither serpents\nzoologically, nor yet the *Nagas *ethnologically, but \"wise\nmen.\"\n\nThe Bible, from *Genesis *to *Revelations, *is but\na series of historical records of the great struggle between white\nand black Magic, between the Adepts of the right path, the Prophets,\nand those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses.\nEven the students of Occultism, though some of them have more\narchaic **MSS**. and direct teaching to rely upon, find it\ndifficult to draw a line of demarcation between the *Sodales\n*of the Right Path and those of the Left. The great schism\nthat arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the\nfirst Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the\nguidance of \"the Sons of God,\" is allegorized in the\nSons of Jacob. That there were two schools of Magic, and that\nthe orthodox Levites did not belong to the *holy *one,\nis shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob. And here\nit may be well to quote a few sentences from \"*Isis Unveiled.*\"\n\nThe dying Jacob thus describes his sons: \"Dan,\" he says,\n\"shall be a *serpent *by the way, an *adder *in\nthe path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall\nfall backwards (*i.e.,* he will teach candidates *black*\nmagic) . . . . I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!\"\nOf Simeon and Levi the patriarch remarks that they\" . . .\n*are *brethren; instru-\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Pantheon,*\"* *text 15.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 212 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nments of *cruelty *are in their habitations. O my soul,\ncome not thou into their *secret*; unto* their assembly.*\"**\n*Now in the original, the words \"their secret\" really\nare \"their **S**OD.\"** And Sod was the\nname for the great mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, who\nwere all sun-gods and had serpents for symbols. The Kabalists\nexplain the allegory of the fiery serpents by saying that this\nwas the name given to the tribe of Levi, to all the *Levites,\n*in short, and that Moses was the chief of the *Sodales.*****\n*It is to the mysteries that the original meaning of the \"Dragon-Slayers\"\nhas to be traced, and the question is fully treated of hereafter.\n\nMeanwhile it follows that, if Moses was the chief of the Mysteries,\nhe was the Hierophant thereof, and further, if, at the same time,\nwe find the prophets thundering against the \"abominations\"\nof the people of Israel, that there were two schools. \"Fiery\nserpents\" was, then, simply the epithet given to the Levites\nof the priestly caste, after they had departed from the *good\nlaw, *the traditional teachings of Moses: and to all those\nwho followed *Black Magic. *Isaiah, when referring to the\n\"rebellious children\" who will have to carry their riches\ninto the land whence come \"the viper and *fiery *flying*\nserpent*\"* *(*xxx. *6), or Chaldea and\nEgypt, whose Initiates had already greatly degenerated in his\nday (700 **B.C**.), meant the sorcerers of those\nlands.**** But these must be carefully distinguished from the\n\"Fiery Dragons of Wisdom\" and the \"Sons of the\nFire Mist.\"\n\nIn the \"*Great Book of the Mysteries*\"* *we\nare told that: \"Seven Lords created Seven men; three Lords\n(Dhyan Chohans or Pitris) were holy and good, four less heavenly\nand full of passion. . . . The *chhayas *(phantoms) of\nthe Fathers were as they.\"\n\nThis accounts for the differences in human nature, which is divided\ninto seven gradations of good and evil. There were seven tabernacles\nready to be inhabited by Monads under seven different Karmic conditions.\nThe Commentaries explain on this basis the easy spread of evil,\nas soon as the human Forms had become real men. Some ancient\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Genesis,*\"* *ch. xlix.\n\n** Dunlap, in his introduction to \"*Sod, the Mysteries\nof Adonis,*\"* *explains the word \"Sod\"\nas *arcanum*, religious mystery, on the authority of Schindler's\n\"*Penteglott.*\"* *\"The secret of\nthe Lord is with them that fear him,\" says Psalm xxv., 14.\nThis is a mistranslation of the Christians, for it ought to read\n\"*Sod Ihoh *(the mysteries of Ihoh) are for *those\nwho fear him*\" (*Dunlap, *\"*Mysteries\nof Adonis,*\"* *xi). \"Al (El) is terrible\nin the great Sod of the *Kadeshim *(the priests, the holy,\nthe *Initiated*)*, *Psalm lxxxix, 7\" (*ibid*.)*.\n*The Kadeshim were very far from holy. (*Vide *Part\n**II**., \"*The Holy of Holies.*\")\n\n*** \"The members of the *priest-Colleges *were called\n*Sodales,*\"* *says Freund's \"Latin Lexicon\"\n(iv. 448). \"Sodalities were constituted in the Idaean Mysteries\nof the **M**IGHTY **M**OTHER,\"\nwrites *Cicero in de Senectute.* (\"*Mysteries of\nAdonis.*\")\n\n**** The priests of Baal who jumped over the fires. But this was\na Hebrew term and a local one. \"Saraph\" -- \"fiery\nor flaming venom.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 213 THE SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON.\n\nphilosophers ignored the seven in their genetical accounts and\ngave only four. Thus the Mexican local *Genesis *has \"four\n*good *men\" described as the four real ancestors of\nthe human race, \"who were neither begotten by the gods nor\nborn of woman\"; but whose creation was a wonder wrought by\nthe creative Powers, and who were made only after \"three\n*attempts at manufacturing men had failed.*\"* *The\nEgyptians had in their theology only \"four sons of God,\"\nwhereas in *Pymander seven *are given -- thus avoiding\nany mention of the evil nature of man; though when Seth from a\ngod sank into Set-Typhon, he began to be called \"the seventh\nson.\" Whence probably arose the belief that \"the seventh\nson of the seventh son\" is always a natural-born magician,\nthough, at first, only a *sorcerer *was meant. **A**PAP,\nthe serpent symbolizing evil, is slain by Aker, Set's serpent;*\ntherefore Set-Typhon could not be that evil. In the \"*Book\nof the Dead*\"* *it is commanded (*v*. 13)\nthat chapter clxiii. should be read \"in the presence of a\nserpent on two legs,\" which means a high Initiate, a Hierophant,\nfor the discus and ram's horns** that adorn his \"serpent's\"\nhead in the hieroglyphics of the title of the said chapter denote\nthis. Over the \"serpent\" are represented the two mystic\neyes of Ammon,*** the hidden \"mystery god.\" This passage\ncorroborates our assertion, and shows what the word \"serpent\"\nmeant in antiquity.\n\nBut as to the Nagals and Nargals, whence came the similarity of\nnames between the Indian Nagas and the American Nagals?\n\n\"The Nargal was the Chaldean and Assyrian chief of the Magi\n(Rab-Mag), and the Nagal was the chief sorcerer of the Mexican\nIndians. Both derive their names from Nergal-Serezer, the Assyrian\ngod, and the Hindu Nagas. Both have the same faculties and the\npower to have an attendant *daemon*, with whom they identify\nthemselves completely. The Chaldean and Assyrian Nargal kept his\n*daemon, *in the shape of some animal considered sacred,\ninside the temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can\n-- in the neighbouring lake, or wood, or in the house in the shape\nof some household animal.\"****\n\nSuch similarity cannot be attributed to *coincidence. *A\nnew world is discovered, and we find that, for our forefathers\nof the Fourth Race,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*Book of the Dead*\"* *xxxix.\n\n** The same ram's horns are found on the heads of Moses which\nwere on some old medals seen by the writer in Palestine, one of\nwhich is in her possession. The horns, made to form part of the\nshining aureole on the statue of Moses in Rome (Michael Angelo),\nare vertical instead of being bent down to the ears, but the emblem\nis the same; hence the Brazen Serpent.\n\n*** But see Harris's \"*Magic Papyrus*\"* *No.\nv.; and the ram-headed Ammon manufacturing men on a potter's wheel.\n\n**** Brasseur de Bourbourg: \"*Mexique,*\"*\n*pp.* *135 and 574.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 214 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nit was already an old one. That Arjuna, Krishna's companion and\n*chela, *is said to have descended into *Patala, *the\n\"antipodes,\" and therein married *Ulupi,** a\nNaga (or Nagini rather), the daughter of the king of the Nagas,\nKauravya.**\n\nAnd now it may be hoped the full meaning of the serpent emblem\nis proven. It is neither that of evil, nor, least of all, that\nof the devil; but is *,* indeed, the [[SEMES EILAM ABRASAX]]\n(\"the eternal Sun-Abrasax\"), the central spiritual sun\nof all the Kabalists, represented in some diagrams by the circle\nof Tiphereth.\n\nAnd here, again, we may quote from our earlier volumes and enter\ninto further explanations.\n\n\"From this region of unfathomable depth (Bythos, Aditi, Shekinah,\nthe veil of the unknown) issues forth a circle formed of spirals.\nThis is Tiphereth; which, in the language of symbolism, means\na grand cycle, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as\nto follow the spirals, lies the serpent -- emblem of Wisdom and\nEternity -- the dual Androgyne; the cycle representing *Ennoia*,\nor the divine mind (a power which does not create but which must\nassimilate), and the serpent, the Agathodaemon, the Ophis, *the\nShadow of the Light *(non-eternal, yet the greatest divine\nlight on our plane). Both were the *Logoi *of the Ophites:\nor the Unity as *Logos *manifesting itself as a double\nprinciple of Good and Evil.\"\n\nWere it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could\nnot appreciate nor even realise it. Shadow is that which enables\nlight to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality. Therefore,\nshadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary\nwhich completes Light or Good: *it is its creator on Earth.*\n\nAccording to the views of the Gnostics, these two principles are\nimmutable Light and Shadow, Good and Evil being virtually one\nand having existed through all eternity, as they will ever continue\nto exist so long as there are manifested worlds.\n\nThis symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent,\nas the Saviour, coiled either around the sacramental loaf, or\na Tau, the phallic emblem. As a Unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the\n*Logos. *When separated, one is the Tree of Life (spiritual),\nthe other, the Tree\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Ulupi has an entirely Atlantean ring about it. Like Atlantis,\nit is neither a Greek nor a Sanskrit name, but reminds one of\nMexican names.\n\n** \"Mahabharata,\" Adiparva, Sloka, 7788, 7789. The \"Bhagavata\nPurana,\" ix., xx., 31, as explained by Sridhera, the commentator,\nmakes Ulupi the daughter of the king of Manipura; but the late\nPundit Dayanand Saraswati, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and\nPuranic authority in India on such questions, personally corroborated\nthat Ulupi was daughter of the king of the Nagas at Patala, or\nAmerica, 5000 years ago, and that the Nagas were Initiates.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 215 BUDDHA'S GREAT MOUNTAIN.\n\nof Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging\nthe first human couple -- the material production of Ilda-Baoth,\nbut which owed its spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth -- to\neat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis represents divine Wisdom.\n\nThe serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree\nof Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India.\nThe Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus (since\nVishnu during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty\nshade and there taught human philosophy and sciences), is called\nthe Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protecting\nfoliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils\ntheir first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the\nmysteries of life and death. The Java-Aleim of the Sacerdotal\nCollege are said, in the Chaldean tradition, to have taught the\nsons of men to become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou,*\nwho lives in his Foh-Maeyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of\nthe \"Kouin-long-sang,\"** the great mountain, produces\nhis greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese\nSung-Ming-Shu, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life,\nfor ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality.\nThis marvellous display takes place every three years, when an\nimmense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assembles in pilgrimage\nat the holy place.\n\nNow it may become comprehensible why the earliest Initiates and\nAdepts, or the \"Wise Men,\" for whom it is claimed that\nthey were initiated into the mysteries of nature by the UNIVERSAL\nMIND, represented by the highest angels, were named the \"Serpents\nof Wisdom\" and \"Dragons;\" as also how the first\nphysiologically complete couples -- after being initiated into\nthe mystery of human creation through Ophis, *the manifested\nLogos *and the androgyne, by eating of the fruit of knowledge\n-- gradually began to be accused by the material spirit of posterity\nof having *committed Sin, *of having disobeyed the \"Lord\nGod,\" and of having been tempted by the Serpent.\n\nSo little have the first Christians (who despoiled the Jews of\ntheir Bible) understood the first four chapters of Genesis in\ntheir esoteric meaning, that they never perceived that not only\nwas no sin intended in this disobedience, but that actually the\n\"Serpent\" was \"the Lord God\" himself, who,\nas the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer of divine creative wisdom,\ntaught mankind to become creators in their turn.*** They\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Foh-tchou, literally, in Chinese meaning Buddha's lord, or the\nteacher of the doctrines of Buddha-Foh.\n\n** This mountain is situated south-west of China, almost between\nChina and Tibet.\n\n*** Let the reader be reminded that in the *Zohar, *and\nalso in all the Kabalistic works, it is maintained that \"Metatron\nunited to *Shekinah*\"* *(or Shekinah as the\nveil (grace) [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 216 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nnever realised that the *Cross was *an evolution from the\n\"tree and the serpent,\" and thus *became the salvation\nof mankind. *By this it would become the very first fundamental\nsymbol of Creative cause, applying to geometry, to numbers, to\nastronomy, to measure and to animal reproduction. According to\nthe Kabala the *curse on man came with the formation of woman.***\n*The circle was separated from its diameter line. \"From\nthe possession of the double principle in one, that is the Androgyne\ncondition, the separation of the dual principle was made, presenting\ntwo opposites, whose destiny it was, for ever after, to seek reunion\ninto the original *one* condition. The curse was this,\nviz.: that nature, impelling the search, evaded the desired result\nby the production of a new being, distinct from that reunion or\noneness desired, by which the natural longing to recover a lost\nstate was and is for ever being cheated. It is by this tantalizing\nprocess of a continued curse that Nature lives.\"** (*Vide\n*\"*Cross and Circle,*\"* *Part II.)\n\nThe allegory of Adam being driven away from the \"Tree of\nLife\" means, esoterically, that the newly separated Race\nabused and dragged the mystery of Life down into the region of\nanimalism and bestiality. For, as the *Zohar *shows, that\nMatronethah (Shekinah, the wife of Metatron symbolically) \"is\nthe way to the great Tree of Life, the Mighty Tree,\" and\nShekinah is divine grace. As explained: This Tree reaches the\nheavenly vale and is hidden between three mountains (the upper\ntriad of principles, in man). From these three mountains, the\nTree ascends above (the adept's knowledge aspires heavenward)\nand then redescends below (into the adept's *Ego *on Earth).\nThis Tree is revealed in the day time and is hidden during the\nnight, *i.e*., revealed to an enlightened mind and hidden\nto Ignorance, which is night. (See *Zohar *I., 172, *a*\nand *b*.) \"The Tree of the Knowledge of the Good and\nthe Evil grows from the roots of the Tree of Life.\" (Comm.)\nBut then also: \"In the Kabala it is plainly to be found that\n\"the '*Tree of Life*'* *was\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] of Ain-Soph), representing\nthe Logos, is that very *Tree of Knowledge*;* *while\nShamael -- the dark aspect of the Logos -- occupies only the rind\nof that tree, and has the knowledge of EVIL alone. As Lacour,\nwho saw in the scene of the Fall (*chap. *iii., *Genesis*)*\n*an incident pertaining to Egyptian Initiation, says: -- \"The\nTree of the *Divination, *or of the *Knowledge *of\nGood and Evil . . . . is the science of *Tzyphon, *the\ngenius of doubt, *Tzy* to teach, and *phon*, doubt.\nTzyphon is one of the Aleim; we shall see him presently under\nthe name of *Nach, *the tempter\" (*Les OEloim,\nVol. II.,* p. 218). He is now known to the symbologists under\nthe name **J**EHOVAH.\n\n* This is the view taken and adopted by all the Church Fathers,\nbut it is not the real esoteric teaching. The *curse *did\nnot begin with the formation of either man or woman, for their\nseparation was a natural sequence of evolution, but for *breaking\nthe law* (*See supra*).\n\n** \"By which (human) nature lives,\" not even the animal\n-- but the misguided, sensual and vicious nature, which *men,\nnot nature, created.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 217 \"MYTHICAL\" MONSTERS A REALITY.\n\nthe ansated cross in its sexual aspect, and that the '*Tree\nof Knowledge*'* *was the separation and the coming\ntogether again to fulfil the fatal condition. To display this\nin numbers the values of the letters composing the word Otz (\n), tree, are 7 and 9, the\nseven being the holy feminine number and the nine the number of\nthe phallic or male energy. This ansated cross is the symbol of\nthe Egyptian *female-male, Isis-Osiris, *the germinal principle\nin all forms, based on the primal manifestation applicable in\nall directions and in all senses.\"*\n\nThis is the Kabalistic view of the Western Occultists, and it\ndiffers from the more philosophical Eastern or Aryan views upon\nthis subject.** The separation of the sexes was in the programme\nof nature and of natural evolution; and the creative faculty in\nmale and female was a gift of Divine wisdom. In the truth of such\ntraditions the whole of antiquity, from the patrician philosopher\nto the humblest spiritually inclined plebeian, has believed. And\nas we proceed, we may successfully show that the *relative\n*truth of such legends, if not their absolute exactness --\nvouched for by such giants of intellect as were Solon, Pythagoras,\nPlato, and others -- begins to dawn upon more than one modern\nscientist. He is perplexed; he stands startled and confused before\nproofs that are being daily accumulated before him; he feels that\nthere is no way of solving the many historical problems that stare\nhim in the face, unless he begins by accepting ancient traditions.\nTherefore, in saying that we believe absolutely in ancient records\nand *universal *legends, we need hardly plead guilty before\nthe impartial observer, for other and far more learned writers,\namong those who belong to the modern scientific school, evidently\nbelieve in much that the Occultists do: *e.g., *in \"Dragons,\"\nnot only symbolically, but also in their actual existence at one\ntime.\n\n\"It would have indeed been a bold step for anyone, some thirty\nyears ago, to have thought of treating the public to a collection\nof stories ordinarily reputed fabulous, and of claiming for them\nthe consideration due to genuine realities, or to have advocated\ntales, believed to be time-honoured fictions, as actual facts;\nand those of the nursery as being, in many instances, legends,\nmore or less distorted, descriptive of real beings or events.\nNowadays it is a less hazardous proceeding . . . . . \"\n\nThus opens the introduction to a recent (1886) and most interesting\nwork by Mr. Charles Gould, called \"Mythical Monsters.\"\nHe boldly states his belief in most of these monsters. He submits\nthat: -- \"Many of the so-called mythical animals, which,\nthroughout long ages and in all nations, have been the fertile\nsubjects of fiction and fable, come\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"The Source of Measures.\"\n\n*** Vide infra, *\"The Septenary,\" in Part **II**.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 218 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nlegitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact natural\nhistory; and that they may be considered, not as the outcome of\nexuberant fancy, but as creatures which really once existed, and\nof which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate descriptions\nhave filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through\nthe mists of time. . . . Traditions of creatures *once co-existing\nwith man, some of which are so weird and terrible as to appear\nat first sight to be impossible. *For me the major part of\nthose creatures are not chimeras but objects of rational study.\nThe dragon, in place of being a creature evolved out of the imagination\nof an Aryan man by the contemplation of lightning flashing through\nthe caverns which he tenanted, as is held by some mythologists,\nis an animal which once lived and dragged its ponderous coils\nand perhaps flew. . . . . To me the specific existence of the\nUnicorn seems not incredible, and in fact, more probable than\nthat theory which assigns its origin to a lunar myth* . . . For\nmy part I doubt the general derivation of myths from 'the contemplation\nof the visible workings of external nature.' It seems to me easier\nto suppose that the palsy of time has enfeebled the utterance\nof these oft-told tales until their original appearance is almost\nunrecognisable, than that *uncultured savages should possess\npowers of imagination and poetical invention far beyond those\nenjoyed by the most instructed nations of the present day*;*\n*less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods\nand demigods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of\nall descriptions are *transformations than to believe *them\nto be inventions.\"**\n\nIt is shown by the same geologist that man, \"successively\ntraced to periods *variously estimated from thirty thousand\nto one million years . *. . . . , co-existed with animals\nwhich have long since become extinct (*p*. 20).\"*\n*These animals, \"weird and terrible,\" were, to give\na few instances -- (1) \"Of the *genus Cidastes, *whose\nhuge bones and vertebrae show them to have attained a length of\nnearly two hundred feet . . . . . . \" The remains of such\nmonsters, no less than ten in number, were seen by Professor Marsh\nin the Mauvaises Terres of Colorado, strewn upon the plains. (2)\nThe *Titanosaurus montanus, *reaching fifty or sixty feet\nin length; (3) the *Dinosaurians *(in the Jurassic beds\nof the Rocky Mountains), of still more gigantic proportions; (4)\nthe *Atlanto-Saurus immanis, *a* femur *of which\nalone is over six feet in length, and which would be thus over\none hundred feet in length! But even yet the line has not been\nreached, and we hear of the discovery of remains of such titanic\nproportions as to possess a thigh-bone over twelve feet in length\n(*p*. 37). Then we read of the monstrous *Sivatherium\n*in the Himalayas, the four-horned stag, as large as an elephant,\nand exceeding the latter in height; of the gigantic *Megatherium:\n*of colossal flying lizards, *Pterodactyli, *with\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*The Unicorn: a Mythological Investigation,*\"*\n*Robert Brown, jun., **F.S.A**.\n\n** Pp. 3 and 4, Introduction to \"Mythical Monsters.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 219 THE FLYING DRAGONS.\n\ncrocodile jaws on a duck's head, etc., etc. *All these were\nco-existent with man, most probably attacked man, as man attacked\nthem*;* *and we are asked to believe that the said\nman was no larger then than he is now! Is it possible to conceive\nthat, surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures, man,\nunless himself a colossal giant, could have survived, while all\nhis foes have perished? Is it with his stone hatchet that he had\nthe best of a *Sivatherium *or a gigantic flying saurian?\nLet us always bear in mind that at least one great man of science,\nde Quatrefages, sees no good scientific reasons why man should\nnot have been \"contemporaneous with the earliest mammalia\nand go back as *far as the* *Secondary Period.*\"*\n\n\"It appears,\" writes the very conservative Professor\nJukes, \"that the flying dragons of romance had something\nlike a real existence in former ages of the world.\"** \"Does\nthe written history of man,\" the author goes on to ask, \"comprising\na few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent\nexistence? Or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over\nhundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies\nof Chaldea and China, shadowy mementoes of prehistoric man, handed\ndown by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors\nto existing lands, from others which, like the fabled Atlantis\nof Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great\ncatastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization;\"\n(p. 17).\n\nThe few remaining giant animals, such as elephants, themselves\nsmaller than their ancestors the Mastodons, and Hippopotami, are\nthe only surviving relics, and tend to disappear more entirely\nwith every day. Even they have already had a few pioneers of their\nfuture genus, and have decreased in size in the same proportion\nas men did. For the remains of a pigmy elephant were found (*E.\nFalconeri*)* *in the cave deposits of Malta; and the\nsame author asserts that they were associated with the remains\nof pigmy Hippopotami, the former being \"only two feet six\ninches high; or the still-existing *Hippopotamus *(*Choeropsis*)*\nLiberiensis, *which M. Milne-Edwards figures as little more\nthan two feet in height.\"***\n\nSceptics may smile and denounce our work as full of nonsense or\nfairy-tales. But by so doing they only justify the wisdom of the\nChinese philosopher Chuang, who said that \"the things that\nmen do know can in no way be compared, numerically speaking, to\nthe things that are unknown\";**** and thus they laugh only\nat their own ignorance.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*The Human Species,*\"* *p.*\n*52.\n\n*** *\"*Manual of Geology,*\"* *p.\n301.\n\n**** *\"*Recherches sur les Mammiferes,*\"*\n*plate I.\n\n**** Preface to \"Wonders by Land and Sea,\" (Shan Hai\nKing).\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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