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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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    "num": 28,
    "slug": "78-xvi-adam-adami-452",
    "title": "XVI. ADAM-ADAMI ... 452",
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    "text": "## XVI. ADAM-ADAMI ... 452\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 2, ch 16\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 452 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n#### § XVI.\n\n##### ADAM-ADAMI.\n\n**N**AMES such as Adam-Adami, used by Mr. Chwolsohn\nin his \"Nabathean Agriculture\"* and derided by M. Renan,\nmay prove little to the profane. To the Occultist, however, once\nthat the term is found in a work of such immense antiquity as\nthe above cited, it proves a good deal: for instance that *Adami\n*was a manifold symbol, originating with the Aryan people,\nas the root word shows, and having been taken from them by the\nSemites and the Turanians -- as many other things were.\n\n\"Adam-Adami\" is a generic compound name as old as languages\nare. The Secret Doctrine teaches that *Ad*-i was the name\ngiven to the first *speaking *race of mankind -- in this\nRound -- by the Aryans. Hence the *Adonim *and *Adonai\n*(the ancient plural form of the word *Adon*)*,\n*which the Jews applied to their Jehovah and angels, who were\nsimply the first spiritual and ethereal sons of the earth; and\nthe god Adonis, who in his many variations stood for the \"First\nLord.\" Adam is the Sanskrit *Ada-Nath, *also meaning\nfirst Lord, as *Ad*-Iswara, or any *Ad *(the first)\nfollowed by any adjective or substantive. The reason for this\nis that such truths were a common inheritance. It was a revelation\nreceived by the *first* mankind before that time which,\nin Biblical phraseology, is called \"the period of one *lip\n*and word,\" or speech; knowledge expanded by man's own\nintuition later on, but still later hidden from profanation under\nan adequate symbology. The author of the \"Qabbalah, (according\nto), the philosophical writings of Ibn Gebirol,\" shows the\nIsraelite using \"*Ad*onai,\" (Lord) instead of\n*Eh*'*yeh *(*I am*)* *and *YHVH*,\nand adds that, while *Ad*onai is rendered \"Lord\"\nin the Bible, \"the lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature,\nthe more general term Elohim, is translated God.\" (p. 175.)\n\nA curious work was translated in 1860 or thereabout, by the Orientalist\nChwolsohn, and presented to ever-incredulous and flippant Europe\nunder the innocent title of *Nabathean Agriculture. *In\nthe opinion of the translator that archaic volume *is *\"*a\ncomplete initiation *into the mysteries of the pre-Adamite\nnations, on the authority of *undeniably authentic* *documents.*\"*\n*It is \"an invaluable compendium, the full epitome of\nthe Doctrines held, of the arts and sciences, not only of the\nChaldeans, but also of the Assyrians and Canaanites of the prehistoric\nages.\" These\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Vide infra.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 453 \"NABATHEAN AGRICULTURE.\"\n\n\"*Nabatheans*\"* -- *as some critics thought\n-- were simply the Sabeans, or Chaldean star-worshippers. The\nwork is a retranslation from the Arabic, into which language it\nwas at first translated from the Chaldean.\n\nMasoudi, the Arabic Historian, speaks of those *Nabatheans,\n*and explains their origin in this wise: \"After the Deluge\n(?) the nations established themselves in various countries. Among\nthese were the Nabatheans, who founded the city of Babylon, and\nwere those descendants of Ham who settled in the same province\nunder the leadership of Nimrod, the son of Cush, who was the son\nof Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. . . . . This took place at\nthe time when Nimrod received the governorship of Babylonia as\nthe delegate of Dzahhak named Biurasp.\"\n\nThe translator, Chwolsohn, finds that the assertions of this historian\nare in perfect accord with those of Moses in *Genesis; *while\nmore irreverent critics might express the opinion that for this\nvery reason their truth should be suspected. It is useless to\nargue this point, which is of no value in the present question.\nThe weather-beaten, long-since-buried problem, and the difficulty\nof accounting, on any logical ground, for the phenomenal derivation\nof millions of people of various races, of many civilized nations\nand tribes, from *three *couples (Noah's sons) in 346 years*\nafter the Deluge, may be left to the Karma of the author of *Genesis,\n*whether he is called Moses or Ezra. That which is interesting\nin the work noticed is its contents, the doctrines enunciated\nin it, which are again, if read esoterically, almost all of them\nidentical with the Secret Teachings.\n\nQuatremere suggested that this book might have been simply a copy\nmade under Nebuchadnezzar **II**., from some Hamitic\ntreatise, \"infinitely more ancient,\" while the author\nmaintains, on \"internal and external evidence,\" that\nits Chaldean original was written out from the oral discourses\nand teachings of a wealthy Babylonian landowner, named Qu-tamy,\nwho had used for those lectures still more ancient materials.\nThe first Arabic translation is placed by Chwolsohn so far back\nas the **XIII**. cent. **B**.**C**.\nOn the first page of this \"revelation,\" the author,\nor *amanuensis, *Qu-tamy, declares that \"the doctrines\npropounded therein, were originally told by *Saturn to the\nMoon, who* *communicated them to her idol, which idol revealed\nthem to her devotee,* *the writer *-- the adept Scribe\nof that work -- Qu-tamy.\n\nThe details given by the God for the benefit and instruction of\nmortals, show periods of incalculable duration and a series of\nnumberless kingdoms and *Dynasties *that preceded the appearance\non Earth of\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* *See Genesis *and the authorised Chronology. In Chapt.\nix. \"Noah leaveth the Ark\" \"**B**.**C**.\n2348.\" Chapter x. \"Nimrod the first Monarch,\" stands\nover \"**B**.**C**. 1998.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 454 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*Adami *(the \"red-earth\"). These periods have\naroused, as might have been expected, the defenders of the chronology\nof the Biblical dead-letter meaning almost to fury. De Rougemont\nwas the first to make a *levee*-in-arms against the translator.\nHe reproaches him* with \"*sacrificing *Moses to an\nanonymous author.\" Berosus, he urges, \"however great\nwere *his chronological errors, *was at least in perfect\naccord with the prophet with regard to the first men, since he\nspeaks of *Alorus-Adam, *of *Xisuthrus-Noah, *and\nof *Belus-Nimrod,*\"* *etc. \"Therefore,\"\nhe adds, \"the work *must be *an **A**POCRYPHA\nto be ranged with its contemporaries -- *the* *fourth\nbook of Esdras, that of Enoch, *the *Sibylline Oracles,\n*and the *Book of Hermes -- every one of these dating*\n*no further back than two or three centuries ***B***.***C***.*\"*\n*Ewald came down still harder on Chwolsohn, and finally M.\nRenan. In the \"*Revue* *Germanique,*\"***\n*the ex-pupil pulls down the authority of his master, by asking\nhim to show a reason why his *Nabathean Agriculture *should\nnot be the fraudulent work of some Jew of the third or fourth\ncentury of our era? It can hardly be otherwise -- argues the romancer\nof the \"Life of Jesus.\" Since, in this *in-folio\n*on astrology and Sorcery we recognise in the personages introduced\nby Qu-tamy, all the patriarchs of the Biblical legends, such as\n*Adam-Adami, Anouka-Noah,* and his *Ibrahim-Abraham\n*etc., etc.\"\n\nThis is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Meanwhile\nit is humbly submitted that, all things considered, an *apocrypha\n-- *if even of the third century **A**.**D**.,\ninstead of the thirteenth century **B.C**., as suggested\nby Quatremere -- is old enough to appear *genuine *as a\ndocument, and so satisfy the demands of the most exacting archaeologist\nand critic. For, even admitting, for argument's sake, that this\nliterary relic has been compiled by \"some Jew of the third\ncentury of our era\" -- what of that? Leaving the credibility\nof its doctrines for a moment aside, why should it be less entitled\nto a hearing, or less instructive as reflecting older opinions,\nthan any other religious work, also a \"compilation from old\ntexts\" or oral tradition -- of the same or even a later age?\nIn such case we should have to reject and call \"apocryphal\"\nthe Quran -- two centuries older, though we know it to have sprung,\nMinerva-like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet; and\nwe should have to pooh-pooh all the information we can get from\nthe *Talmud, *which, in its present form, was also compiled\nfrom older materials, and is not earlier than the **IX**.\ncentury of our era.\n\nThe curious \"Bible\" of the Chaldean adept, and the various\ncriticisms upon it (as in the Chwolsohn's translation), are noticed,\nbecause it has an important bearing upon a great portion of the\npresent work.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Annales de Philosophie, *June 1860, p. 415.\n\n** April 30, 1860.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 455 MANY VIEWS OF MANY MINDS.\n\nWith the exception of M. Renan, an iconoclast by principle --\nso pointedly called by Jules Lemaitre \"*le Paganini du\nNeant*\"* -- *the worst fault found with the work\nis, it would seem, that the \"apocrypha\" pretends to\nhave been communicated *as a revelation *to an adept by,\nand from, the \"idol of the moon,\" who received it from\n\"Saturn.\" Hence, very naturally, it is \"a fairy\ntale all round.\" To this there is but one answer: it is no\nmore a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other\nmust follow it. Even the mode of divination through \"the\nidol of the moon\" is the same as practised by David, Saul,\nand the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle by means of the\nTeraphim. In Volume **III**., Part **II**.\nof this present work, the practical methods of such ancient divination\nwill be found.\n\nThe \"Nabathean Agriculture\" is a compilation indeed;\nit is no apocrypha, but the repetition of the tenets of the Secret\nDoctrine under the exoteric Chaldean form of national symbols,\nfor the purpose of \"cloaking\" the tenets, just as the\nBooks of Hermes and the Puranas are Egyptian and Hindu attempts\nat the same. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was\nduring the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more\nthan once to this Chaldeo-Arabic **MS**., calling\nthe Nabatheans by their co-religionary name, *i.e*., \"star-worshippers,\"\nor Sabeans, but yet failing to see in this disfigured word \"Nabatheans\"\nthe mystic name of the caste devoted to *Nebo *(god of\n*secret *wisdom), which shows on its face that the *Nabatheans\n*were an occult Brotherhood.* The Nabatheans who, according\nto the Persian Yezidi, originally came to Syria from Busrah, were\nthe degenerate members of that fraternity; still their religion,\neven at that late day, was purely Kabalistic.** Nebo is the deity\nof the planet Mercury, and Mercury is the god of Wisdom or Hermes,\nand *Budha,* which the Jews called\n\"the Lord on high, the aspiring,\" . . . and the Greeks\nNabo, [[*Nabo*]], hence Nabatheans. Notwithstanding that\nMaimonides calls their doctrines \"heathenish foolishness\"\nand their archaic literature \"*Sabaeorum foetum,*\"*\n*he places their \"agriculture,\" the Bible of Qu-tamy,\nin the first rank of Archaic literature; and Abarbinel\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"I will mention to thee the writings . . . respecting *the\nbelief of the Sabeans,*\" he says. \"The most famous\nis the Book 'The *Agriculture of the Nabatheans,*'*\nwhich** *has been translated by *Ibn Wahohijah. *This\nbook is full of heathenish foolishness. . . . It speaks of preparations\nof **T**ALISMANS, the drawing down of the powers\nof the **S**PIRITS, **M**AGIC, **D**EMONS,\nand ghouls, which make their abode in the desert.\" (Maimonides,\nquoted by Dr. D. Chwolsohn, \"Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus,\"\n**II**., p. 458.) The Nabatheans of Mount Lebanon\nbelieved in the Seven Archangels, as their forefathers had believed\nin the Seven Great Stars, the abodes and bodies of these Archangels,\nbelieved in to this day by the Roman Catholics, as is shown elsewhere.\n\n** See \"Isis Unveiled,\" Vol. **II**., p.\n197.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 456 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\npraises it in unmeasured terms. Spencer, quoting the latter, speaks\nof it as that \"most excellent Oriental work,\" adding\n(vol. 1., p. 354) that by Nabatheans, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans,\nand the Egyptians, in short all those nations *against whom\nthe laws of Moses were most* *severely enacted, *have\nto be understood.\n\nNebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was\nidentical with the Hindu Budha and Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks.\nA slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration.\nAs Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife\nof Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpa-nitu (the\nMoon deity) and of Merodach, who had become Jupiter, after having\nbeen a Sun God. As Mercury the planet, Nebo was the \"overseer\"\namong the seven gods of the planets; and as the personification\nof the Secret Wisdom he was *Nabin, *a seer and a prophet.\nThe fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount\nsacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest of that god\nunder another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great creative\ndeity, and was worshipped as such, not alone at Borsippa in his\ngorgeous Temple, or planet-tower. He was likewise adored by the\nMoabites, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole\nof Palestine: then why not by the Israelites? \"The planetary\ntemple of Babylon\" had \"its holy of holies\" within\nthe shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of Wisdom. We are told in\nthe Hibbert Lectures, \"The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor\nbetween men and the gods . . . and Nebo, was the 'proclaimer'\nor 'prophet,' as he made known the desire of his father Merodach.\"\n\nNebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth\nRace. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter,\nthe *Solar-Lunar *Dynasty, or the men of these Races and\nRound. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures. Adam-Adami\nis a personation of the *dual *Adam: of the paradigmic\nAdam-Kadmon, the creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial,\nwho, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only *nephesh, *\"the\nbreath of life,\" but *no living* *soul, *until\nafter his Fall.\n\nIf, therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldean Scriptures\n-- or what remains of them -- as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial\nto truth and fact. There are other Orientalists who may be of\na different opinion; and even were they not, it would still really\nmatter very little. These doctrines contain the teachings of Esoteric\nphilosophy, and this must suffice. To those who understand nothing\nof symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, or to\nhim who would conceal the esoteric truth, even \"heathenish\nfoolishness.\" Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn\nfor the esotericism in the religion of other nations, confessed\nesotericism and symbology in his own, preached\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 457 THE KABALISTIC FOUR ADAMS.\n\nsilence and secresy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and\nthus came to grief. The Doctrines of Qu-tamy, the Chaldean, are,\nin short, the allegorical rendering of the religion of the earliest\nnations of the Fifth Race.\n\nWhy then should M. Renan treat the name \"Adam-Adami\"\nwith such academical contempt? The author of the \"Origins\nof Christianity\" evidently knows nothing of the \"*origins\nof pagan *symbolism\" or of Esotericism either, otherwise\nhe would have known that the name was a form of universal symbol,\nreferring, *even with the Jews, *not to one man, but to\nfour distinct humanities or mankinds. This is very easily proven.\n\nThe Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the\ntransformation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from\nthe *Dyooknah *(divine phantom) of the Heavenly Man, an\nethereal combination of Neschamah, the highest Soul or Spirit:\nthis Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body, nor a\n*body of desire. *This \"Adam\" is the prototype\n(*tzure*) of the second Adam. That they represent our Five\nRaces is certain, as everyone can see by their description in\nthe Kabala: the first being the \"perfect, Holy Adam\";\n. . . \"a shadow that disappeared\" (the Kings of Edom)\nproduced from the divine *Tzelem *(Image); the second is\ncalled the protoplastic androgyne Adam of the future terrestrial\nand separated Adam; the third Adam is the man made of \"dust\"\n(the first, innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed forefather\nof our own race -- the Fallen Adam. See, however, the admirably\nclear description of these in Mr. Isaac Myer's \"Qabbalah,\"\np. 418, *et seq. *He gives only four Adams, because of\nthe Kings of Edom, no doubt. \"The fourth Adam,\" he writes,\n\" . . . . was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This\nanswers to the Lower *Nephesch* and *Guff, i.e., *body,\nunited. He has the animal power of reproduction and continuance\nof species,\" and this is the *human* Root-Race.\n\nIt is just at this point that the modern Kabalists -- led into\nerror by the long generations of Christian mystics who have tampered\nwith the Kabalistic records wherever they could -- diverge from\nthe Occultists in their interpretations, and take the later thought\nfor the earlier idea. The original Kabala was entirely metaphysical,\nand had no concern with animal, or terrestrial sexes; the later\nKabala has suffocated the divine ideal under the heavy phallic\nelement. The Kabalists say: -- \"God made man male and female.\"\n\"Among the Qabbalists, the necessity to continued creation\nand existence is called the Balance,\" says the author of\n*Qabbalah; *and being without this \"Balance,\"\nconnected with *Ma-qom *(mysterious place),* even the First\nRace is not,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Simply, the womb, the \"Holy of Holies\" with the Semites.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 458 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nas we have seen, recognized by the Sons of the Fifth Adam. From\nthe highest Heavenly Man, the upper Adam who is \"male female\"\nor Androgyne, down to the Adam of dust, these personified symbols\nare all connected with sex and procreation. With the Eastern Occultists\nit is entirely the reverse. The sexual relation they consider\nas a \"Karma\" pertaining only to the mundane relation\nof man, who is dominated by Illusion, a thing to be put aside,\nthe moment that the person becomes \"wise.\" They considered\nit a most fortunate circumstance if the Guru (teacher) found in\nhis pupil an aptitude for the pure life of Brahmacharya. Their\ndual symbols were to them but the poetical imagery of the sublime\ncorrelation of creative Cosmic forces. And this ideal conception\nis found beaming like a golden ray upon each idol, however coarse\nand grotesque, in the crowded galleries of the sombre fanes of\nIndia and other Mother lands of cults.\n\nThis will be demonstrated in the following Section.\n\nMeanwhile, it may be added that, with the Gnostics, the second\nAdam also emanates from the Primeval Man, the Ophite *Adamas,\n*in \"whose image he is made\"; the third, from this\nsecond -- an Androgyne. The latter is symbolized in the 6th and\n7th pairs of the male-female AEons, --Amphian-Essumene, and Vannanin-Lamer\n(Father and Mother; *vide* Valentinian Table, in Epiphanius)\n-- while the fourth Adam, or Race, is represented by a Priapean\nmonster. The latter -- a post-Christian fancy -- is the degraded\ncopy of the ante-Christian Gnostic symbol of the \"Good One,\"\nor \"He, *who created before anything existed*,\"\nthe Celestial Priapus -- truly born from Venus and Bacchus *when*\n*that* *God returned from his expedition into India,\n*for Venus and Bacchus are the post-types of Aditi and the\nSpirit. The later Priapus, one, however, with Agathodaemon, the\nGnostic Saviour, and even with Abraxas, is no longer the glyph\nfor *abstract creative *Power, but symbolizes the four\nAdams, or Races, the fifth being represented by the *five*\nbranches cut off from the Tree of Life on which the old man stands\nin the Gnostic gems. The number of the Root-Races was recorded\nin the ancient Greek temples by the seven vowels, of which *five*\nwere framed in a panel in the Initiation halls of the Adyta. The\nEgyptian glyph for it was a hand with five fingers spread, the\nfifth or little finger being only half-grown, and also *five*\n\"**N**'s\" -- hieroglyphs standing for that\nletter. The Romans used the five vowels **A E I O V**\nin their fanes; and this archaic symbol was adopted during the\nmiddle ages as a motto by the House of the Hapsburgs. *Sic\ntransit gloria!*\n\n---------\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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