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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 27,
    "slug": "77-esoteric-tenets-corroborated-in-every-scripture-449",
    "title": "ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE ... 449",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 1764,
    "text": "## ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE ... 449\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 2, intro\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 447]]\n\n##### BOOK II., PART II.\n\n#### THE\n\n#### ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE\n\n#### WORLD-RELIGIONS.\n\n---------\n\n\"The narratives of the Doctrine are its cloak. The simple\nlook only at the garment -- that is, upon the narrative of the\nDoctrine; more they know not. The instructed, however, see not\nmerely the cloak, but what the cloak covers.\n\n(The ***Z****OHAR**,* iii., 152;\nFranck, 119.)\n\n\"**T**HE **M**YSTERIES OF THE **F**AITH\n(are) NOT TO BE DIVULGED TO ALL. . . . . It is requisite to hide\nin a mystery the wisdom spoken.\"\n\n(*Clem. Alex., *\"Strom.\" 12.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 448]]\n\n##### CONTENTS.\n\n--------\n\n§ **E**SOTERIC **T**ENETS **C**ORROBORATED\nIN EVERY **S**CRIPTURE ... 449\n\n------\n\nXVI. **A**DAM-**A**DAMI ... 452\n\n------\n\nXVII. **T**HE \"**H**OLY OF **H**OLIES\"\n-- **I**TS **D**EGRADATION ... 459\n\n------\n\nXVIII. **O**N THE **M**YTH OF THE \"**F**ALLEN\n**A**NGEL,\" IN ITS **V**ARIOUS\n**P**HASES ... 475\n\nThe Evil Spirit: Who and What? ... 475\n\nThe Gods of Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness ... 483\n\nThe Many Meanings of the \"War in Heaven\" ... 492\n\n-------\n\nXIX. **I**S **P**LEROMA **S**ATAN'S\n**L**AIR? ... 506\n\n-------\n\nXX. **P**ROMETHEUS, THE **T**ITAN ...\n519\n\nHis Origin in Ancient India ... 519\n\n-------\n\nXXI. ENOICHION ... 529\n\n------\n\nXXII. **T**HE **S**YMBOLISM OF THE **M**YSTERY-**N**AMES\n**I**AO AND **J**EHOVAH, WITH THEIR\n**R**ELATION TO THE **C**ROSS AND **C**IRCLE\n... 536\n\nCross and Circle ... 545\n\nThe Fall of the Cross into Matter ... 553\n\n------\n\nXXIII. **T**HE **U**PANISHADS IN **G**NOSTIC\n**L**ITERATURE ... 563\n\n------\n\nXXIV. **T**HE **C**ROSS AND THE **P**YTHAGOREAN\n**D**ECADE ... 573\n\n-------\n\nXXV. **T**HE **M**YSTERIES OF THE **H**EBDOMAD\n... 590\n\nSaptaparna ... 590\n\nThe Tetraktis in relation to the Heptagon ... 598\n\nThe Septenary Element in the Vedas. It corroborates the Occult\nTeaching concerning the Seven Globes and the Seven Races ... 605\n\nThe Septenary in the Exoteric Works ... 611\n\nSeven in Astronomy, Science and Magic ... 618\n\nThe Seven Souls of the Egyptologists ... 630\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 449]]\n\n#### BOOK II. -- PART II.\n\n--------\n\n##### ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY\nSCRIPTURE.\n\n**I**N view of the strangeness of the teachings,\nand of many a doctrine which from the modern scientific stand-point\nmust seem absurd, some necessary and additional explanations have\nto be made. The theories contained in the Second Part of the Stanzas\nare even more difficult to assimilate than those which are embodied\nin Vol. 1, on Cosmogony. Theology, therefore, has to be questioned\nhere, as Science will be in the *Addenda *(Part **III**.).\nSince our doctrines differ so widely from the current ideas of\nboth Materialism and Theology, the Occultists must be ever prepared\nto repel the attacks of either or of both.\n\nThe reader can never be too often reminded that, as the abundant\nquotations from various old Scriptures prove, these teachings\nare as old as the world; and that the present work is a simple\nattempt to render, in modern language and in a phraseology with\nwhich the scientific and educated student is familiar, archaic\nGenesis and History as taught in certain Asiatic centres of esoteric\nlearning. They must be accepted or rejected on their own merits,\nfully or partially; but not before they have been carefully compared\nwith the corresponding theological dogmas and the modern scientific\ntheories and speculations.\n\nOne feels a serious doubt whether, with all its intellectual acuteness,\nour age is destined to discover in each western nation even one\nsolitary *uninitiated *scholar or philosopher capable of\nfully comprehending the spirit of archaic philosophy. Nor can\none be expected to do so, before the real meaning of these terms,\nthe Alpha and the *Omega *of Eastern esotericism, the words\n*Sat* and *Asat, -- *so* *freely used in\nthe Rig-Veda, and elsewhere -- is thoroughly assimilated. Without\nthis key to the Aryan Wisdom, the Cosmogony of the Rishis and\nthe Arhats is in danger of remaining a dead letter to the average\nOrientalist. *Asat is** *not merely the negation of\n*Sat, *nor is it the \"not yet existing\"; for\n*Sat* is in itself neither the \"existent,\" nor\n\"being.\" **S**AT is the immutable, the\never present, changeless and eternal root, from and through which\nall proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the\nseed, which propels onward the process of development, or what\nis now called evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never\nmanifesting.* *Sat*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The Hegelian doctrine, which identifies *Absolute Being *or\n\"Be-ness\" with \"non-Being,\" and represents\nthe Universe as an *eternal becoming, *is identical with\nthe Vedanta philosophy.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 450 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nis born from *Asat*, and **A**SAT is begotten\nby *Sat: *the perpetual motion in a circle, truly; yet\na circle that can be squared only at the supreme Initiation, at\nthe threshold of Paranirvana.\n\nBarth started a reflection on the *Rig-Veda *which was\nmeant for a stern criticism, an unusual, therefore, as was thought,\nan original view of this archaic volume. It so happened, however,\nthat, while criticising, that scholar revealed a truth, without\nbeing himself aware of its full importance. He premises by saying\nthat \"neither in the language nor in the thought of the Rig-Veda\"\nhas he \"been able to discover that quality *of primitive\nnatural simplicity, *which so many are fain to see in it.\"\nBarth had Max Muller in his mind's eye when writing this. For\nthe famous Oxford professor has throughout characterised the hymns\nof the Rig Veda, as the unsophisticated expression of the religious\nfeeling of a pastoral innocent people. \"In the Vedic hymns\nthe ideas and myths appear in their simplest and freshest form;\"\n-- the Sanskrit scholar thinks. Barth is of a different opinion,\nhowever.\n\nSo divided and personal are the opinions of Sanskritists as to\nthe importance and intrinsic value of the Rig Veda, that those\nopinions become entirely biassed whichever way they incline. Thus\nMr. Max Muller declares that: \"Nowhere is the wide distance\nwhich separates the ancient poems of India from the most ancient\nliterature of Greece more clearly felt, than when we compare the\ngrowing myths of the Veda with the full grown and decayed myths\non which the poetry of Homer is founded. The Veda is the real\nTheogony of the *Aryan races,* while that of Hesiod is\na distorted caricature of the original image.\" This is a\nsweeping assertion, and perhaps rather unjust in its general application.\nBut why not try to account for it? Orientalists cannot do so,\nfor they reject the chronology of the Secret Doctrine, and could\nhardly admit the fact that between the Rig-Vedic hymns and Hesiod's\nTheogony tens of thousands of years have elapsed. So they fail\nto see that the Greek myths are no longer the primitive symbolical\nlanguage of the Initiates, the disciples of the gods-Hierophants,\nthe divine ancient \"sacrificers,\" and that disfigured\nby the distance, and encumbered by the exuberant growth of human\n*profane* fancy, they now stand like distorted images of\nstars in running waves. But if Hesiod's Cosmogony and Theogony\nare to be viewed as caricatures of the original images, how much\nmore so the myths in the Hebrew *Genesis *in the sight\nof those, for whom they are no more divine revelation or the word\nof God, than Hesiod's Theogony is for Mr. Gladstone.\n\n\"The poetry it (the Rig Veda) contains appears to me, on\nthe contrary,\" says Barth \"to be of a singularly *refined*\ncharacter and\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 451 THE VEDAS WRITTEN BY INITIATES.\n\nartificially elaborated, *full of allusions and reticences,\n*of* pretensions* (?) to mysticism and theosophic insight,\nand the manner of its expression is such as reminds one more frequently\nof the phraseology in use *among* *certain small groups\nof initiated, *than the poetic language of a large community.\"\n(\"*The Religions of India,*\"* *p. xiii.)\n\nWe will not stop to enquire of the critic what he can know of\nthe phraseology in use among the \"initiated,\" or whether\nhe belongs himself to such a group; for, in the latter case, he\nwould hardly have used such language. But the above shows the\nremarkable disagreement between scholars even with regard to the\n*external* character of the Rig Veda. What, then, can any\nof the modern Sanskritists know about its *internal *or\nesoteric meaning, beyond the correct inference of Barth, that\n*this Scripture has been compiled by ***I**NITIATES?\n\nThe whole of the present work is an endeavour to prove this truth.\nThe ancient adepts have solved the great problems of science,\nhowever unwilling modern materialism may be to admit the fact.\nThe mysteries of Life and Death *were* fathomed by the\ngreat master-minds of antiquity; and if they have preserved them\nin secresy and silence, it is because these problems formed part\nof the sacred mysteries; and, secondly, because they must have\nremained incomprehensible to the vast majority of men then, as\nthey do now. If such teachings are still regarded as chimeras\nby our opponents in philosophy, it may be a consolation to the\nTheosophists to learn, on good proofs, that the speculations of\nmodern psychologists -- whether serious Idealists, like Mr. Herbert\nSpencer, or wool-gathering pseudo-Idealists -- are far more chimerical.\nIndeed, instead of resting on the firm foundation of facts in\nNature, they are the unhealthy will-o'-the-wisps of materialistic\nimagination, of the brains that evolved them -- and no more. While\nthey deny, we affirm; and our affirmation is corroborated by almost\nall the sages of antiquity. Believing in Occultism and a host\nof invisible Potencies for good reasons, we say: *Certus sum,\nscio quod credidi; *to which our critics reply: *Credat\nJudaeus Apella. *Neither is converted by the other, nor does\nsuch result affect even our little planet. *E pur se muove!*\n\nNor is there any need of proselytizing. As remarked by the wise\nCicero, \"Time destroys the speculations of man, but it confirms\nthe judgment of nature.\" Let us bide our time. Meanwhile,\nit is not in the human constitution to witness in silence the\ndestruction of one's gods, whether they be true or false. And\nas theology and materialism have combined together to destroy\nthe old gods of antiquity and seek to disfigure every old philosophical\nconception, it is but just that the lovers of old wisdom should\ndefend their position, by proving that the whole arsenal of the\ntwo is, at best, formed of new weapons made out of very old material.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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