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    "num": 35,
    "slug": "85-xxii-the-symbolism-of-the-mystery-names-iao-and-jehovah-536",
    "title": "XXII. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH ... 536",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 13719,
    "text": "## XXII. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH ... 536\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 2, ch 22\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 536 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n#### § XXII.\n\n##### THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND\nJEHOVAH, WITH THEIR RELATION TO THE CROSS\nAND CIRCLE.\n\n**W**HEN the Abbe Louis Constant -- known as Eliphas\nLevi -- said in his* Histoire de la Magie *that the *\"Sepher\nJezirah, *the *Zohar, *and the Apocalypse (of St. John)\nare the master-pieces of the Occult Sciences,\" he ought,\nif he wanted to be correct and clear, to have added, \"in\nEurope.\" It is quite true that these works contain \"more\n*significance* than words\"; and that \"its expression\nis poetical, while in numbers it is exact.\" Unfortunately,\nbefore any one can appreciate the *poetry *of the expressions,\nor the *exactness *of the numbers, he will have to learn\nthe real significance and meaning of the terms and symbols used.\nAnd man will never learn this so long as he remains ignorant of\nthe fundamental principle of the *Secret *Doctrine, whether\nin Oriental Esotericism, or in the Kabalistical symbology: --\nthe *key, or value, in all their aspects,* *of the \"God\"-names,\n\"Angel\"-names, and \"Patriarchal\" names in\nthe* *Bible *--* *their mathematical or geometrical\nvalue, and their relations to manifested nature.\n\nTherefore, if, on the one hand, the *Zohar *\"astonishes\n(the mystic) by the profundity of its views and the great simplicity\nof its images,\" on the other hand, that work misleads the\nstudent by such expressions as those used with respect to **A**IN-**S**OPH\nand *Jehovah, *notwithstanding the assurance that \"the\nbook is careful to explain that the human form with which it clothes\nGod is but *an image of the word, *and that God should\nnot be expressed by any thought, or any form.\" It is well\nknown that Origen, Clemens, and the Rabbis confessed, with regard\nto the Kabala and the Bible, to their being *veiled* and*\nsecret Books;* but few know that the esotericism of the Kabalistic\nbooks in their present *re-edited *form* *is simply\nanother and still more cunning veil thrown upon the primitive\nsymbolism of these secret volumes.\n\nThe idea of representing the *hidden *deity by the circumference\nof a Circle, and the Creative Power (male and female, or the Androgynous\n**W**ORD), by the diameter across it, is one of the\noldest symbols. It is upon this conception that every great Cosmogony\nwas built. With the old Aryans, the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans,\nit was complete, as it embraced the idea of the eternal and immovable\n*Divine Thought *in its absoluteness, separated entirely\nfrom the incipient stage of (the so-called)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 537 THE JEWS ALONE THE HEIRLOOM OF JEHOVAH.\n\n*creation; *and comprised psychological and even Spiritual\nevolution, and its mechanical work, or cosmogonical construction.\nWith the Hebrews, however, though the former conception is to\nbe distinctly found in the Zohar, and the Sepher Jezirah -- or\nwhat remains of the latter -- that which has been embodied subsequently\nin the *Pentateuch *proper, and especially in *Genesis,\n*is simply this secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law\nof creation, or rather of construction; while theogony is hardly,\nif at all, outlined.\n\nIt is only in the first six chapters of *Genesis, *in the\nrejected *Book of* *Enoch, *and the misunderstood\nand mistranslated poem of *Job, *that true echoes of the\narchaic doctrine may now be found. The key to it is lost, even\namong the most learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the early\nperiod of the middle ages have preferred, in their national exclusiveness\nand pride, and especially in their profound hatred of Christianity,\nto cast it into the deep sea of oblivion, rather than to share\ntheir knowledge with their relentless and fierce persecutors.\nJehovah was their own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit\nto play a part in, any other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn\nout of his original frame, which he fitted and which fitted him,\nthe \"lord god of Abraham and Jacob\" could hardly be\ncrammed without damage and breakage into the new Christian Canon.\nBeing the weakest, the Judeans could not help the desecration;\nbut they kept the secret of the origin of their Adam Kadmon, or\nmale-female Jehovah; and the new tabernacle proved a complete\nmisfit for the old god: they were, indeed, avenged!\n\nThe statement that Jehovah was the tribal god of the Jews and\nno higher, will be denied like many other things. Yet the theologians\nare not in a position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of\nverses 8 and 9 in Deuteronomy, chapter xxxii. These verses say\nquite plainly: \"When the **M**OST **H**IGH\n(not the \"Lord,\" or \"Jehovah\" either) divided\nto the nations their inheritance, when he separated the Sons of\nAdam he set the bounds . . . according to the number of the children\nof Israel. . . . *The Lord's *(Jehovah's)* portion is\nhis people; Jacob is the lot of his* *inheritance.\"\n*This settles the question. So impudent were the modern translators\nof Bibles and Scriptures and so damaging are these verses, that,\nfollowing in the steps traced for them by their worthy Church\nFathers, each translator rendered these verses in his own way.\nWhile the above-cited quotation is taken *verbatim *from\nthe authorized English version, in the French Bible (of the *Protestant\nBiblical Society *of Paris, according to the version revised\nin 1824 by J. E. Ostervald) one finds the \"Most High\"\ntranslated by *Souverain *(a Sovereign!!), the \"sons\nof Adam\" rendered by \"the children of men,\" and\nthe \"Lord\" changed into the \"Eternal.\" For\nimpudent sleight-of-hand, the French Protestant Church seems thus\nto have surpassed even English ecclesiasticism.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 538 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nNevertheless, one thing is patent: the \"Lord's (\"Jehovah's\")\nportion\" is his \"chosen people\" and none else,\nfor, *Jacob alone is the lot of his* *inheritance. *What,\nthen, have other nations, who call themselves Aryans, to do with\nthis Semitic deity, the tribal god of Israel? Astronomically,\nthe \"Most High\" is the Sun, and the \"Lord\"\nis one of his seven planets, whether it be *Iao, *the genius\nof the moon, or Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah, that of Saturn, according\nto Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.* Let the \"Angel Gabriel,\"\nthe \"Lord\" of Iran, watch over his people; and Michael-Jehovah,\nover his Hebrews. These are not the gods of other nations, nor\nwere they ever those of Jesus. As each Persian* Dev* is\nchained to his planet (see Origen's Copy of the Chart), so each\nHindu Deva (a \"Lord\") has its allotted portion, a world,\na planet, a nation or a race. Plurality of worlds implies plurality\nof gods. We believe in the former, and may recognize, but will\nnever worship, the latter. (*Vide *Part **III**.,\n\"On Chains of Worlds and their Plurality.\")\n\nIt has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious\nand philosophical symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each\npertaining to its legitimate plane of thought,* i.e.*,\neither purely metaphysical or astronomical; psychic or physiological,\netc., etc. These seven meanings and their applications are hard\nenough to learn when taken by themselves; but the interpretation\nand the right comprehension of them become tenfold more puzzling,\nwhen, instead of being correlated, or made to flow consecutively\nout of and to follow each other, each, or any one of these meanings\nis accepted as the one and sole explanation of the whole symbolical\nidea. An instance may be given, as it admirably illustrates the\nstatement. Here are two interpretations given by two learned Kabalists\nand scholars, of one and the same verse in *Exodus, *xxxiii,\n18-23. Moses beseeches the Lord to show him his \"glory.\"\nEvidently it is not the crude dead letter phraseology as found\nin the Bible that is to be accepted. There are *seven*\nmeanings in the Kabala, of which we may give two as interpreted\nby the said two scholars. One of them quotes, while explaining:\n\"Thou canst not see my face . . . I will put thee in the\ncleft of the rock . . . cover thee with my hand while I pass by.\nAnd then I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my *a'hoor,\n*my back; . . \" and tells us in a gloss, \"That is,\nI will show you 'My back,'* i.e.*, my visible universe,\nmy lower manifestations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou\ncanst not\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* With the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth (Hermes), who was chief\nof the Seven (*Vide* \"Book of the Dead\"). Their\nnames are given by Origen, as *Adonai* (of the Sun) *Iao\n*(of the Moon),* Eloi* (Jupiter)*, Sabao *(Mars)*,\nOrai *(Venus), *Astapkoi *(Mercury), and, finally,\n*Ildabaoth *(Saturn).\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 539 A GROTESQUE VERSE EXPLAINED.\n\nsee my invisible nature. So proceeds the Qabbalah.\" This\nis correct, and is the cosmo-metaphysical explanation. And now\nspeaks the other Kabalist, giving the numerical meaning. As it\ninvolves a good many suggestive ideas, and is far more fully given,\nwe may allow it more space. This synopsis is from an unpublished\n**MS**., and explains more fully what was given in\n§ **XVII**, \"The Holy of Holies,\"\npage 467.\n\nThe numbers of the name Moses are those of \"**I**\nAM THAT **I** AM,\" so that the names Moses and\nJehovah are at one in numerical harmony.\n\nThe word Moses is and the\nsum of the values of its letters is 345; Jehovah -- the genius\n*par excellence *of the lunar year -- assumes the value\nof 543, or the reverse of 345. . . . In the third chapter of Exodus,\nin the 13th and 14th verses, it is said: And Moses said . . .\nBehold when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say\nunto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and\nthey shall say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?\nand God said unto Moses -- \"I am that I am.\"\n\nThe Hebrew words for this expression are *ahiye asher ahiye,\n*and in the value of the sums of their letters stand thus:--\n\n. . . This being his (God's) name, the sum of the values composing\nit are 21, 501, 21* *are 543, or simply a use of the simple\ndigit numbers in the name of Moses . . . but now so ordered that\nthe name of 345 is reversed, and reads 543. . . . So that when\nMoses asks \"Let me see Thy face or glory,\" the other\nrightly and truly replies \"Thou canst not see my face\"\n. . . but thou *shalt see me behind -- *(the true sense,\nthough not the precise words); because the comer and the *behind\n*of 543 is the *face *of 345 -- \"for check and\nto keep a *strict use *of a set of numbers to develop certain\n*grand* results, for the object of which they are specifically\nemployed.\" \"In other uses,\" adds the learned Kabalist,\n\"of the number they saw each other face to face. It is strange\nthat if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the gnostic Kabalistic\nvalue of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so also\nthe division of the 24 hours of the day gives three eights as\nquotient. . . . The chief end of all this system of number checks\nwas to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar year\nin the natural measure of days.\"\n\nThis is the astronomical and numerical meaning in the secret theogony\nof sidereo-cosmical gods invented by the Chaldeo-Hebrews,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** The Qabbalah, *by Isaac Myer.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 540 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand two meanings out of seven. The other five would astonish the\nChristians still more.\n\nThe series of OEdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the\nriddle of the Sphinx, is long indeed. For many ages she has been\ndevouring the brightest and the noblest intellects of Christendom;\nbut now the Sphinx is conquered. In the great intellectual struggle\nwhich has ended in the complete victory of the OEdipuses of Symbolism,\nit is not the Sphinx, however, who, burning with the shame of\ndefeat, has had to bury herself in the sea, but verily the many-sided\nsymbol, named Jehovah, whom Christians -- the *civilized *nations\n-- have accepted for their God. The latter has collapsed under\nthe too close analysis, and is -- drowned. Symbologists have discovered\nwith dismay that their adopted deity was only a mask for many\nother gods, an *Euhemerized *extinct planet, at best, the\ngenius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter,\nwith early Christians; that the Trinity was, in truth, only an\nastronomical triad -- unless they accepted the more abstract and\nmetaphysical meanings given to it by the Gentiles -- composed\nof the Sun (the Father), and the two planets Mercury (the Son)\nand Venus (the Holy Ghost*, Sophia, *the Spirit of Wisdom,\nLove and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the bright and morning\nStar; *vide \"Revelation,\" ch. *xxii., 15). Because,\nif the Father is the Sun (the elder Brother in the Eastern *inner*\nphilosophy), the nearest planet to it is Mercury (Hermes, Budha,\nThot), the name of whose mother on Earth was Maia; the planet\nwhich receives seven times more light than any other: which fact\nled the Gnostics to call their Christos, and the Kabalists their\nHermes (in the astronomical meaning), the \"seven-fold light\"\n(*vide at end of this *§)*. *Finally, *this\n*God was Bel; the Sun being \"Bel,\" with the Gauls,\n\"Helios\" with the Greeks, \"Baal,\" with the\nPhoenicians; \"El\" in Chaldean, hence \"EL-ohim,\"\n\"Emanu-EL,\"* El*, \"god,\" in Hebrew.\nBut even the Kabalistic god has vanished in the rabbinical workmanship,\nand one has now to turn to the innermost metaphysical sense of\nthe *Zohar *to find in it anything like Ain-Soph, the nameless\ndeity and the Absolute, so authoritatively and loudly claimed\nby the Christians. But it is certainly not to be found in the\nMosaic books, by those who try to read without a Key to them.\nEver since it was lost Jews and Christians have tried their best\nto blend these two conceptions, but in vain. They have only succeeded\nin finally robbing even the Universal Deity of **I**TS\nmajestic character and primitive meaning.\n\nThis is what was said in *\"Isis Unveiled\"**:**\n-*-\n\nIt would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between\nthe mystery-god [[*Iao*]], adopted from the highest antiquity\nby all who participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests,\nand his phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little\nreverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 541 THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CROSS.\n\nIn the Ophite gems of King (\"Gnostics\") we find the\nname of **IAO **repeated, and often confounded with\nthat of *Jevo, *while the latter simply represents one\nof the genii antagonistic to Abraxas. But the name **IAO**\nneither originated with, nor was it the sole property of the Jews.\nEven if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the tutelary\n\"Spirit,\" the alleged protector and national deity of\nthe \"chosen people of Israel,\" there is yet no possible\nreason why other nationalities should receive Him as the Highest\nand One-living God. But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides,\nthere is the fact that Jaho or Iao was a \"Mystery name\"\nfrom the beginning, for\nand never came into use\nbefore King David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names\nwere compounded with *Iah *or Jah. It looks rather as though\nDavid, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines (2\nSamuel), brought thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok high\npriest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and\nruled first at Hebron ,\nHabir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites of the four (mystery-gods)\nwere celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon recognized either Moses\nor the law of Moses. They aspired to build a temple to ,\nlike the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon\nand Astarte.\n\nSays Furst: \"The very ancient name of God, Yaho, written\nin the Greek law, appears, apart *from its derivation, *to\nhave been an old mystic name of the Supreme deity of the Shemites.\nHence it was told to Moses when he was initiated at Hor-eb --\nthe *cave *-- under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite\n(or Cainite) priest of Midian. In an old religion of the Chaldeans,\nwhose remains are to be found among the Neo-Platonists, the highest\ndivinity, enthroned above the seven heavens, representing the\nSpiritual Light-Principle . . . . and also conceived of as Demiurgus,*\nwas called [[*Iao*]]( ),\nwho was, like the Hebrew Yaha, mysterious and unmentionable, and\nwhose name was communicated to the Initiated. The Phoenicians\nhad a Supreme God, whose name was trilateral and *secret, *and\nhe was [[*Iao*]].\"** (*Isis Unveiled*)*,\n*Vol.** II**., p. 298.)\n\nThe Cross, say the Kabalists, repeating the lesson of the Occultists,\nis one of the most ancient -- nay, perhaps, the *most *ancient\nof symbols. This is demonstrated at the very beginning of the\n*Proem *(Vol. I.). The Eastern Initiates show it coeval\nwith the circle of Deific infinitude and the first differentiation\nof the Essence, the union of spirit and matter. This was rejected,\nand the astronomical allegory alone was accepted and made to fit\ninto cunningly imagined terrestrial events.\n\nLet us demonstrate this statement. In astronomy, as said, Mercury\nis the son of Coelus and Lux -- of the sky and light, or the Sun;\nin mythology he is the progeny of Jupiter and Maia. He is the\n\"messenger\" of his Father Jupiter, the Messiah of the\nSun; in Greek, his name \"Hermes,\" means, among other\nthings, the \"Interpreter\" -- the \"Word\" by\nmouth; the LOGOS, or VERBUM. Now, Mercury, besides being born\non Mount Cyllene among shepherds, is the patron of the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* By very few though, for the creators of the material universe\nwere always considered as subordinate gods to the Most High Deity.\n\n** Lydus I., c. Ledrenus, I. c.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 542 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nlatter. A psychopompic genius, he conducted the souls of the dead\nto Hades and brought them back, an office attributed to Jesus,\nafter his death and resurrection. The symbols of Hermes-Mercury\n(*Dii* *Termini*)* *were placed along and\nat the turning points of highways (as crosses are now placed in\nItaly) and *they were cruciform.* *Every seventh day the\npriests anointed these *termini *with oil, and once a year\nhung them with garlands, hence they were the *anointed. *Mercury,\nwhen speaking through his oracles said, \"I am he whom you\ncall the Son of the Father (Jupiter) and Maia. Leaving the King\nof Heaven (the Sun) I come to help you, mortals.\" Mercury\nheals the blind and restores sight, mental and physical.** He\nwas often represented as three-headed and called \"Tricephalos,\"\n\"Triplex,\" as one with the Sun and Venus. Finally, Mercury,\nas Cornutus*** shows, was sometimes figured under a cubic form,\nwithout arms, because \"the power of speech and eloquence\ncan prevail without the assistance of arms or feet.\" It is\nthis cubic form which connects the *termini *directly with\nthe cross, and the eloquence or the power of speech of Mercury,\nwhich made the crafty Eusebius say \"Hermes is the emblem\nof the Word which creates and interprets all,\" for it is\nthe *creative *word; and he shows Porphyry teaching that\nthe speech of Hermes, (now interpreted* **\"Word of*\n*God\"* (!)* *in Pymander) a creative speech\n(*Verbum*)*, *is the seminal principle scattered\nthroughout the Universe.**** In Alchemy \"Mercury\" is\nthe radical *Moyst, *primitive or elementary water, containing\nthe seed of the Universe, fecundated by the solar fires. To express\nthis fecundating principle, a phallus was often added to the cross\n(the male and female, or the vertical and the horizontal united)\nby the Egyptians (*Vide* Egyptian Museums). The cruciform\n*termini *also represented this dual idea, which was found\nin Egypt in the *cubic *Hermes. The author of \"Source\nof Measures\" tells us why. (But see the last page of §\n**XVI**., about the Gnostic Priapus).\n\nAs shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross\nof the *tau, *or the Egyptian, form; or again, \"the\ncircle attached to the *tau *gives the ansated cross\"\nof the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their priests and\ntheir \"Kings Initiates\" for ages, and also what was\nmeant by \"the attachment of a man to the cross,\" which\nidea \"was made to co-ordinate with that of the origin of\nhuman life, and hence the *phallic form.\" *Only the\nlatter came into action aeons and ages after the idea of the carpenter\nand artificer of the Gods,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*Montfaucon, *Antiquities. *See plates in Vol. I., plate\n77. The disciples of Hermes go after their death to his planet,\nMercury -- their Kingdom of Heaven.\n\n** Cornutus.\n\n*** Lydus de Mensibus, iv.\n\n***** Preparat, Evang. *I. iii. ch. 2.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 543 A PERSONAL, IS A FINITE GOD.\n\nVisvakarma, crucifying the \"Sun-Initiate\" on the cruciform\nlathe. As the same author writes: *\"the attachment of\na man to the cross *. . . was made use of in this very form\nof display by the Hindus\"; but, made \"to co-ordinate\"\nwith the idea of the new rebirth of man by *spiritual,*\nnot physical regeneration. The candidate for initiation was attached\nto the *tau* or astronomical cross with a far grander and\nnobler idea than that of the origin of mere *terrestrial*\nlife*.*\n\nOn the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher\npurpose in life than that of procreating their species. Thus,\ngeometrically, and according to the reading of the Bible by means\nof the numerical method, the author of the \"Hebrew-Egyptian\nMystery\" is quite correct. *Their *(the Jewish) entire\nsystem --\n\n\"Seems to have been anciently regarded as one resting in\nnature, and one which was adopted by nature, or God, as the *basis\nof law *of the exertion practically of creative power -- *i.e*.,\nit was the *creative design, *of which creation was practically\nthe application. This seems to be established by the fact that,\nunder the system set forth, measures of *planetary times *serve\ncoordinately as measures of the *size *of planets, and\nof the peculiarity of their shapes -- *i.e., *in the extension\nof their equatorial and polar diameters\" . . . etc., etc.\n(p. 3). . . . \"This system seems to underlie the whole Biblical\nstructure (that of creative design), as a foundation for its *ritualism\n*and for its display of the works of the Deity in the way\nof *architecture, *by use of the sacred unit of measure\nin the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle, and the\nTemple of Solomon.\"\n\nThus, on the very showing of the defenders of this system the\nJewish Deity is proved to be, at best, only the manifested *duad*,\nnever the One absolute **A**LL. Geometrically demonstrated,\nhe is a NUMBER; symbolically, an *euhemerized *Priapus;\nand this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting after the demonstration\nof real spiritual truths, and the possession of a god with a divine,\nnot anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the most learned\nof modem Kabalists can see in the cross and circle nothing but\na symbol of the manifested *creative *and *androgyne\n*deity in its relation to, and interference with, this phenomenal\nworld.* One author believes that \"man (read the Jew and Rabbi)\nobtained knowledge of the practical measure . . . . by which nature\nwas thought to adjust the planets in size to harmonize with the\nnotation of their movements\" . . . . and adds: \"it seems\nhe did obtain it, and esteemed its possession as the means of\nhis realization of the Deity -- that is, he approached *so\nnearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own,\n*only infinitely more powerful, as to be able to realize *a\nlaw of creation*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See the *Zohar *and the two Qabbalahs (by Messrs. I.\nMyer and Mathers), with interpretations, if the reader would satisfy\nhimself of this.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 544 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nestablished by that Being, which must have existed prior to any\ncreation (Kabalistically called the *Word*)* \"**\n*(*\"Source of Measures,\"* p*. *5).\n\nThis may have satisfied the practical *Semite* mind, but\nthe Eastern Occultist has to decline the offer of *such *a\nGod; indeed, a Deity, a Being, \"having a mind like that of\nman, only infinitely more powerful,\" is *no* God that\nhas any room *beyond *the cycle of creation. He has nought\nto do with the* ideal* conception of the eternal universe.\nHe is, at best, one of the *creative subordinate *powers,\nthe Totality of which is called the \"Sephiroth,\" the\n\"Heavenly Man,\" and Adam Kadmon, the *second*\n*logos *of the Platonists.\n\nThis very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest\ndefinitions of the Kabala and its mysteries, *e.g*., by\nJohn A. Parker, as quoted in the same work: --\n\n\"The key of the Kabala is *thought to be the geometrical\nrelation of the area of* *the circle inscribed in the square,\n*or, of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to the relation\nof diameter to circumference of a circle with the numerical value\nof this relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter\nto circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god-names\nof Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically\nof these relations respectively, the first being of circumference,\nthe latter of diameter), embraces all. Two expressions of circumference\nto diameter in integrals are used in the Bible: (1) The perfect,\nand (2) the imperfect. One of the relations between these is such\nthat (2) subtracted from (1) will leave a *unit* of a diameter\nvalue in terms, or in the denomination of the circumference value\nof the perfect circle, or a unit straight line having a perfect\ncircular value, or a factor of circular value\" (p. 22).\n\nSuch calculations can lead one no further than to unriddle the\nmysteries of the *third *stage of Evolution, or the \"third\ncreation of Brahma.\" The initiated Hindus know how to \"square\nthe circle\" far better than any European. But of this more\nanon. The fact is that the Western Mystics commence their speculation\nonly at that stage when the universe \"falls into matter,\"\nas the occultists say. Throughout the whole series of Kabalistic\nbooks we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the\nremotest way at the psychological and spiritual, as well as at\nthe mechanical and *physiological *secrets of \"creation.\"\nShall we, then, regard the evolution of the Universe as simply\na prototype, on a gigantic scale, of the act of procreation? as\n\"divine\" *Phallicism, *and rhapsodize on it as\nthe evilly-inspired author of a late work of this name has done?\nThe writer does not think so. And she feels justified in saying\nso, since the most careful reading of the Old Testament -- esoterically,\nas well as exoterically -- seems to have carried the most enthusiastic\nenquirers no further than a certainty on mathematical grounds\nthat from the first to the last chapter of the *Pentateuch\n*every scene, every character or event are shown connected,\ndirectly or indirectly, with the *origin of birth *in its\ncrudest and most\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 545 A PLAGIARISM BY PASCAL.\n\nbrutal form. Thus, however interesting and ingenious the rabbinical\nmethods, the writer, in common with other Eastern Occultists,\nmust prefer those of the Pagans.\n\nIt is not, then, in the Bible that we have to search for the origin\nof the Cross and Circle, but beyond the Flood. Therefore, returning\nto Eliphas Levi and the Zohar, we answer for the Eastern Occultists\nand say that, applying practice to principle, they agree entirely\nwith Pascal, who says that \"God is a circle, the centre of\nwhich is everywhere and the circumference nowhere,\" whereas\nthe Kabalists say the reverse, and maintain it solely out of their\ndesire to veil their doctrine. By the way, the definition of Deity\nby the Circle is not Pascal's at all, as E. Levi thought. It was\n*borrowed *by the French philosopher from either Mercury\nTrismegistus or Cardinal Cusa's Latin work, *De Docta*\n*Ignorantia, *in which he makes use of it. It is, moreover,\ndisfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words \"Cosmic Circle,\"\nwhich stand symbolically in the original inscription, by the word\n*Theos. *With the ancients both words were synonymous.\n\n-------\n\n####### A.\n\n####### CROSS AND CIRCLE.\n\nSomething of the divine and the mysterious has ever been ascribed,\nin the minds of the ancient philosophers, to the shape of the\ncircle. The old world, consistent in its symbolism with its pantheistic\nintuitions, uniting the visible and the invisible Infinitudes\ninto one, represented Deity and its outward VEIL alike -- by a\ncircle. This merging of the two into a unity, and the name *theos\n*given indifferently to both, is explained, and becomes thereby\nstill more *scientific *and philosophical. Plato's etymological\ndefinition of the word *theos *has been shown elsewhere.\nHe derives it from the verb [[*theein*]] (see *Cratylus*)*,\n*\"to move,\" as suggested by the motion of the heavenly\nbodies which he connects with deity. According to the Esoteric\nphilosophy, this Deity is during its * *\"nights\"\nand its \"days\" (*i.e.*, cycles of rest or activity)\n\"the *eternal* *perpetual motion,\" *\"the\nEVER-BECOMING, as well as the ever universally present, and the\never Existing.\" The latter is the root-abstraction, the former\n-- the only possible conception in human mind, if it disconnects\nthis deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual, never-ceasing\nevolution, circling back in its incessant progress through aeons\nof duration into its original status -- **A**BSOLUTE\n**U**NITY.\n\nIt was only the minor gods, who were made to carry the symbolical\nattributes of the higher ones. Thus, the god *Shoo, *the\npersonification of *Ra, *who appears as \"the great\nCat of the Basin of Persea, in An\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 546 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n(*See \"Book of the Dead,\" Ritual ***XVII**,\n45-47), was often represented in the Egyptian monuments seated,\nand holding a cross, symbol of the four quarters, or the Elements,\nattached to a Circle.\n\nIn that very learned work, \"The Natural Genesis,\" by\nMr. Gerald Massey, on pp. 408-455 (Vol. I.), under the heading,\n\"Typology of the Cross,\" there is more information to\nbe had on the cross and circle than in any other work we know\nof. He who would fain have proofs of the antiquity of the Cross\nis referred to these two volumes. The author shows that \"the\ncircle and the cross are inseparable. . . . The crux ansata unites\nthe circle and cross of the four corners. From this origin they\ncame to be interchangeable at times. For example, the Chakra,\nor Disk of Vishnu, is a circle. The names denote the circling,\nwheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of time. This the god uses\nas a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like manner, Thor throws\nhis weapon, the Fylfot, a form of the four-footed cross (Swastica)\nand a type of the four quarters. Thus the cross is equivalent\nto the circle of the year. . . . The wheel emblem unites the cross\nand circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake and the Ankh-te\n.\"\n\nNor was the double glyph sacred with the profane, but only with\nthe Initiates. For Raoul-Rochette shows (*ibid*)* *\"the\nsign , occurring as the\n*reverse *of a Phoenician coin, with a Ram as the obverse.\n. . . .The same sign, sometimes called Venus' Looking-Glass, because\nit typified reproduction, was employed to mark the hind-quarters\nof valuable brood mares of Corinthian and other beautiful breeds\nof horses\" (Raoul-Rochette, loc. cit. *De La Croix Ansee,\nMem. de l'Academie des* *Sciences, *pl.* *2,\nNos. 8, 9, also 16, 2, p. 320, quoted in *\"Nat. Gen.\"*)*,*\nwhich proves that so far back as those early days the cross had\nalready become the symbol of human procreation, and that oblivion\nof the *divine* origin of Cross and Circle had been forgotten.\n\nAnother form of the cross is given from the *Journal of the\nRoyal* *Asiatic Society *(vol. xviii., p. 393, pl.\n4): --\n\n\"At each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an\noviform curve, and when the four are put together they form an\noval; thus the figure combines the cross with the circle round\nin four parts, corresponding to the four corners of the cross.\nThe four segments answer to the four feet of the Swastica cross\nand the Fylfot of Thor. The four-leaved lotus flower of Buddha,\nis likewise figured at the centre of this cross, the lotus being\nan Egyptian and Hindu type of the four quarters. The four quarter\narcs, if joined together, would form an ellipse, and the ellipse\nis also figured on each arm of the cross. This ellipse therefore\ndenotes the path of the earth . . . . Sir J. Y. Simpson copied\nthe following specimen ,\nwhich is here presented, as the cross of the two equinoxes and\nthe two solstices placed within the figure of the earth's path.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 547 VARIATIONS OF THE SYMBOLISM.\n\nThe same ovoid or boat-shaped figure appears at times in the Hindu\ndrawings with seven steps at each end as a form or a mode of Meru.\"\n\nThis is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are\nsix more aspects, however, and an attempt may be made to interpret\na few of these. The subject is so vast that it would require in\nitself alone many volumes.\n\nBut the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of Cross and Circle,\nspoken of in the above cited work, is one which receives its full\nexplanation and final colour from Aryan symbols of the same nature.\nSays the author: --\n\n\"The four-armed Cross is simply the cross of the four quarters,\nbut the cross sign is not always simple.* This is a type that\nwas developed from an identifiable beginning, which was adapted\nto the expression of various ideas afterwards. The most sacred\ncross of Egypt that was carried in the hands of the gods, the\nPharaohs, and the mummied dead, is the *Ankh*\nthe sign of life, the living, an oath, the covenant . . . The\ntop of this is the hieroglyphic Ru\nset upright on the Tau-Cross. The Ru is the door, gate, mouth,\nthe place of outlet. This denotes the *birth-place *in\nthe northern quarter of the heavens, from which the Sun is reborn.\nHence the Ru of the *Ankh sign is the* *feminine type\nof the birth-place, representing the north. *It was in the\n**N**ORTHERN **Q**UARTER that the **G**ODDESS\nOF THE **S**EVEN **S**TARS, called the\n\"Mother of the Revolutions,\" gave birth to time in the\nearliest cycle of the year. The first sign of this primordial\ncircle and cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh-cross\n, a mere loop which contains\nboth a circle and the cross in one image. This loop or noose is\ncarried in front of the oldest genitrix*,* *Typhon of\nthe great Bear, *as her *Ark, *the ideograph *of\na period, an ending, a time,* shown to mean one revolution.\n\n\"This then represents the circle made in the northern heaven\nby the Great Bear, which constituted the earliest year of time,\nfrom which we infer that the loop or Ru of the North represents\nthat quarter, the birth-place of time when figured as the Ru of\nthe Ankh symbol. Indeed this can be proved. The noose is an Ark\nor Rak type of reckoning. The Ru of the Ankh-cross was continued\nin the Cypriote and the\nCoptic Ro, P.** The Ro, was carried into the Greek cross ,\nwhich is formed of the Ro and Chi or R-K. . . . The Rak, or Ank,\nwas the sign of all beginning (*Arche*) on this account,\nand the Ank-tie is the cross of the North, the hind part of Heaven.\n. . .\"\n\nNow this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The Puranic\nversion in India gives the whole another colour; and without,\nhowever,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*Certainly not; for very often there are symbols *made to symbolize\nother *symbols, and these are in turn used in ideographs.\n\n** The R of the Slavonian and Russian alphabets (the Kyriletza)\nis also the Latin P.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 548 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ndestroying the above interpretation it is made to reveal a portion\nof its mysteries with the help of the astronomical key, and thus\noffers a more metaphysical rendering. The \"Ankh-tie\"\ndoes not belong to Egypt\nalone. It exists under the name of pasa, a cord which Siva holds\nin the hand of his right back arm* (Siva having four arms). The\nMahadeva is represented in the posture of an ascetic, as Maha-Yogi,\nwith his third eye , which\nis \"the Ru, ,set upright\non the Tau-Cross\" in another form. The pasa is held in the\nhand in such a way that it is the first finger and hand near the\nthumb which make the cross, or loop and crossing.\nOur Orientalists would have it to represent a cord to bind refractory\noffenders with, because, forsooth, Kali, Siva's consort, has the\nsame as an attribute!\n\nThe *pasa *has here a double significance, as also has\nSiva's *trisula *and every other divine attribute. This\nsignificance lies in Siva, as Rudra has certainly the same meaning\nas the Egyptian ansated cross in its cosmic and mystic meaning.\nIn the hand of Siva it becomes *linga* and *yonic. *That\nwhich is meant is this: Siva, as said before, is unknown by that\nname in the Vedas; and it is in the white *Yajur *Veda\nthat he appears for the first time as the great god -- **M**AHADEVA\n-- whose symbol is the lingham. In Rig Veda he is called Rudra,\nthe \"howler,\" the beneficent and the maleficent Deity\nat the same time, the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu\nPurana, he is the god who springs from the forehead of Brahma,\nwho separates into male and female, and he is the parent of the\nRudras or Maruts, half of whom are brilliant and gentle, others,\nblack and ferocious. In the Vedas, he is the divine Ego aspiring\nto return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that\ndivine ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make\nof him the \"roarer,\" the \"terrible.\" This\nis well shown in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, wherein the Rudras,\nthe progeny of Rudra, god of fire, are called the \"ten vital\nbreaths\" (*prana,* life) with *manas,* as eleventh,\nwhereas as Siva, he is the *Destroyer *of that life. Brahma\ncalls him Rudra, and gives him, besides, seven other names, which\nnames are his seven forms of manifestation, also the seven powers\nof nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate.\n\nHence the cruciform noose (*pasa*)* *in his hand,\nwhen he is represented as an ascetic, the *Mahayogin, *has\nno phallic signification, and it, indeed, requires a strong imagination\nbent in this direction to find such even in\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Moor's \"Hindu Pantheon,\" plate xiii.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 549 \"GUHA,\" THE MYSTERIOUS.\n\nan astronomical symbol. As an emblem of \"door, gate, mouth,\nthe place of outlet\" it signifies the \"strait gate\"\nthat leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the \"birth-place\"\nin a physiological sense.\n\nIt is a *Cross in a Circle* and* Crux Ansata, *truly;\nbut it is a Cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified\nbefore the Yogi passes through the \"strait gate,\" the\nnarrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the\n*inner *man has passed the threshold.\n\nAs to the mysterious constellation of the Seven Rishis in the\ngreat Bear, if Egypt made them sacred to \"the oldest genitrix,\nTyphon\" -- India has connected all these symbols ages ago\nwith time or *Yuga* revolutions, and the Saptarishis are\nintimately connected with our present age -- the Dark *Kali\nYug.* *The great Circle of Time, on the face of which fancy\nin India has represented the Tortoise (Kurma, or Sisumara, one\nof the Avatars of Vishnu), has the Cross placed on it by nature\nin its division and localisation of stars, planets and constellations.\nThus in *Bhagavata Purana V., xxx., *it is said that \"at\nthe *extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed\ntoward the* *South *and whose body is *in the shape\nof a ring *(Circle), Dhruva (the ex-pole star) is placed;\nand *along that tail *are the Prajapati, Agni, Indra, Dharma,\netc.; and *across its loins *the Seven Rishis.\" This\nis then the first and earliest Cross and Circle, into the formation\nof which enters the Deity (symbolized by Vishnu), the Eternal\nCircle of Boundless Time, *Kala, *on whose plane lie crossways\nall the gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time;\n-- who, as the philosophy has it, all die at the Mahapralaya.\n\nMeanwhile it is they, the Seven Rishis, who mark the time and\nthe duration of events in our septenary life cycle. They are as\nmysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only\none -- she who hides -- has proven virtuous. The Pleiades (Krittika)\nare the nurses of Karttikeya, the God of War (Mars of the Western\nPagans), who is called the Commander of the celestial armies --\nor rather of the Siddhas (translated Yogis in heaven, and holy\nsages on the earth) -- \"Siddha-sena,\" which would make\nKarttikeya identical with Michael, the \"leader of the celestial\nhosts\" and, like himself, a virgin *Kumara.*** Verily\nhe is the \"Guha,\" the *mysterious one, *as much\nso as are the Saptarshis and the Krittika (seven Rishis and the\nPleiades), for the interpretation of all these combined, reveal\nto the adept the greatest mysteries of occult nature. One point\nis worth mention in this question of cross and\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Described in the *\"Mission des Juifs\" *by the\nMarquis St. Yves d'Alveydre, the hierophant and *leader *of\na large party of French Kabalists, as the Golden Age!\n\n** The more so since he is the reputed slayer of Tripurasura and\nthe Titan Taraka. Michael is the conqueror of the dragon, and\nIndra and Karttikeya are often made identical.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 550 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ncircle, as it bears strongly upon the elements of fire and water,\nwhich play such an important part in the circle and cross Symbolics.\nLike Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been born of a mother\nalone (Juno), without the participation of a father, or like the\nAvatars (Krishna, for instance), in the West as in the East --\nKarttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner -- begotten\nby neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra Siva,\n*via* *Agni, *who dropped it into the Ganges. Thus\nhe is born from *fire and water* -- a \"boy bright\nas the Sun and beautiful as the moon.\" Hence he is called\n*Agnibhuva* (Agni's son) and *Ganga-putra *(Son\nof Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittika, his nurses,\nas Matsya Purana shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the\nauthentic words -- \"The seven Rishis are on a line with the\nbrilliant Agni,\" and hence are called Agneya -- and the connection\nis easy to follow.\n\nIt is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali-yuga,\nthe age of sin and sorrow. See in the Bhagavata Purana **XII**.,\nII, *2, *6, 32, and Vishnu Purana. Says the latter: \"When\nthe splendour of Vishnu (Krishna) departed for heaven, then did\nthe Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade the world.\n. . . . When the Seven Rishis were in Magha, the Kali Yug, comprising\n1,200 (divine) years (432,000 years of mortals), began; and when\nfrom Magha, they shall reach Purvashadha, then will this Kali\nage attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors.\"*\nThis is the revolution of the Rishis \"when the two first\nstars of the Seven Rishis (of the Great Bear) rise in the heavens,\nand some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance\nbetween them, then the Seven Rishis continue stationary in that\nconjunction for a hundred years,\" a hater of Nanda makes\nParasara say. According to Bentley, it is in order to show the\nquantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion originated\namong the astronomers. It was done \"by assuming an imaginary\nline, or great circle, passing through the poles of the ecliptic\nand the beginning of the fixed Magha, which circle was supposed\nto cut some of the stars in the Great Bear. . . . The seven stars\nbeing called the Rishis, the Circle so assumed was called the\nline of the Rishis . . . . and being invariably fixed to the beginning\nof the lunar asterism Magha, the precession would be noted by\nstating the degree . . . of any moveable lunar mansion cut by\nthat line or circle as an index\" (\"Historical View of\nthe Hindu Astronomy,\" p. 65).\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Nanda is the first Buddhist Sovereign, Chandragupta, against\nwhom all the Brahmins were so arrayed; he of the Morya Dynasty,\nand the grandfather of Asoka. This is one of those passages that\ndo not exist in the earlier Puranic **MSS**. They\nwere added by the Vaishnavas, who interpolated almost as much,\nout of Sectarian spite, as the Christian Fathers did.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 551 THE RISHIS AND THE PLEIADES.\n\nThere was, and still exists, a seemingly endless controversy about\nthe chronology of the Hindus. Here is a point that could help\nto determine -- approximately at least -- the age when the symbolism\nof the Seven Rishis and their connection with the Pleiades began.\nWhen Karttikeya was delivered to them by the gods to be nursed,\nthe Krittika were only six -- whence Karttikeya is represented\nwith *six heads; *but when the poetical fancy of the early\nAryan symbologists made of them the consorts of the Seven Rishis,\nthey *were seven. *Their names are given, and these are\nAmba, Dula, Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghayanti, Varshayanti, and Chupunika.\nThere are other sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow, the\nSeven Rishis were made to marry the Seven Krittika before the\ndisappearance of the seventh Pleiad. Otherwise, how could the\nHindu astronomers speak of that which, without the help of the\nstrongest telescopes, no one can see? This is why, perhaps, in\nevery such case the majority of the events described in the Hindu\nallegories is fixed upon as \"a very recent invention, certainly\n*within* the Christian era\"?\n\nThe oldest **MSS**. in Sanskrit on astronomy, begin\ntheir series of *Nakshatras *(the 27 lunar asterisms) with\nthe sign of *Krittika, *and this can hardly make them earlier\nthan 2780 **B.C**., (see the \"Vedic Calendar,\"\naccepted even by the Orientalists); though they get out of the\ndifficulty by saying that the said Calendar does not *prove*\nthat the Hindus knew anything of astronomy at that date, and assure\ntheir readers that, Calendars notwithstanding, the Indian *pundits\n*may have acquired their knowledge of the lunar mansions headed\nby Krittika from the Phoenicians, etc. However that may be, the\nPleiades are the central group of the system of sidereal symbology.\nThey are situated in the neck of the constellation of *Taurus,\n*regarded by Madler and others, in astronomy, *as*\n*the central group *of the system of The Milky Way, and\nin the Kabala and Eastern Esotericism, as the *sidereal septenate\n*born from the first manifested side of the upper triangle,\nthe concealed . This manifested\nside is *Taurus, *the Symbol of **O**NE (the\nfigure 1), or of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, *Aleph*\n(bull or ox) whose synthesis\nis ten (10), or *Yodh,\n*the perfect letter and number. The Pleiades (Alcyone, especially),\nare thus considered, even in astronomy, as the central point around\nwhich *our Universe of fixed stars revolves, *the focus\nfrom which, and into which the *divine breath, ***M**OTION,\nworks incessantly during the Manvantara. Hence -- in the Occult\nphilosophy and its sidereal symbols -- it is this Circle and the\nstarry cross on its face, which play the most prominent part.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine teaches us that everything in the universe,\nas well as the universe itself, is formed (created) during its\nperiodical manifestations -- by accelerated **M**OTION\nset into activity by the **B**REATH of\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 552 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe ever-to-be-unknown power (unknown to present mankind, at any\nrate) within the phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immortality\nwas everywhere symbolized by a circle: hence the serpent biting\nhis tail, represents the circle of Wisdom in infinity; as does\nthe astronomical cross -- the cross within a circle, and the globe,\nwith two wings added to it, which then became the sacred *Scarabaeus\n*of the Egyptians, its very name being suggestive of the secret\nidea attached to it. For the Scarabaeus is called in Egypt (in\nthe *papyri*)* Khopirron *and* Khopri* from\nthe verb *Khopron *\"to become,\" and has thus\nbeen made a symbol and an emblem of human life and of the successive\n*becomings *of man, through the various peregrinations\nand metempsychoses (reincarnations) of the liberated Soul. This\nmystical symbol shows plainly that the Egyptians believed in reincarnation\nand the successive lives and existences of the Immortal entity.\nBeing, however, an esoteric doctrine, revealed only during the\nmysteries by the priest-hierophants and the Kings-Initiates to\nthe candidates, it was kept secret. The incorporeal intelligences\n(the Planetary Spirits, or Creative Powers) were always represented\nunder the form of circles. In the primitive philosophy of the\nHierophants these *invisible *circles were the prototypic\ncauses and builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were their\n*visible *bodies or coverings, and of which they were the\nsouls. It was certainly a universal teaching in antiquity. (See\n*Ezekiel, *ch. 1.)\n\n\"Before the mathematical numbers,\" says Proclus (*in\nQuinto Libro,* **E**UCLID), \"there are the\n*Self-moving *numbers; before the figures apparent -- the\nvital figures, and before producing the material worlds *which\nmove* *in a Circle, *the Creative Power produced the\n*invisible *Circles.\"\n\n*Deus enim et circulus est, *says Pherecydes, in his hymn\nto Jupiter. It was a Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras prescribed\nsuch a circular prostration and posture during the hours of contemplation.\n\"The devotee must approach as much as possible the form of\na perfect circle,\" prescribes the Secret Book. Numa tried\nto spread among the people the same custom, Pierius* tells his\nreaders; and Pliny says: \"During our worship, we roll up,\nso to say, our body in a ring, *totum* *corpus circumagimur.\"**\n*The vision of the prophet Ezekiel reminds one\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n**Pierius Vale.*\n\n** The goddess Basht (or Pasht) was represented with the head\nof a cat. This animal was sacred in Egypt for several reasons:\nas a symbol of the Moon \"the eye of Osiris\" or the \"Sun,\"\nduring night. The cat was also sacred to Sokhit. One of the mystic\nreasons was because of its body being rolled up in a *circle\n*when asleep. The posture is prescribed for occult and magnetic\npurposes, in order to regulate in a certain way the circulation\nof the vital fluid, with which the cat is pre-eminently endowed.\n\"The nine lives of a cat\" is a popular saying based\non good physiological and occult reasons. Mr. G. Massey gives\nalso an astronomical reason for it which may be found in §\nI. \"**S**YMBOLISM.\" \"The cat saw the\nSun, had it in its eye by night (was the eye [[footnote continued\non following page]]\n\n[[Vol. 2, Page]] 553 THE DEGRADATION OF THE SYMBOL.\n\nforcibly of this mysticism of the circle, when he beheld a *whirl-wind\n*from which came out \"one *wheel *upon the earth\"\nwhose work *\"was *as it were a wheel in the middle\nof a wheel*\" *(ch. i. vv. 4-16). . . . \"for the\nSpirit of the living creature *was* in the wheels\"\n(v. 20).\n\n*\"Spirit *whirleth about continually and returneth\nagain according to his circuits\" -- says Solomon (*Eccles.\n*i. 6), who is made in the English *translation *to\nspeak of the \"Wind,\" and in the *original text *to\nrefer both to the *Spirit *and the *Sun. *But the\n*Zohar, *the only true glossary of the Kabalistic *Preacher,\n*in explanation of this verse, which is, perhaps, rather hazy\nand difficult to comprehend, says that \"it seems to say that\nthe sun moves in circuits, whereas it refers to the Spirit *under\nthe* *Sun, *called the holy Spirit, that moves circularly,\ntoward both sides, that they (It and the Sun) *should be united\nin the same Essence.\" *. . . (*Zohar, *fol. 87,\ncol. 346.)\n\nThe Brahmanical \"Golden Egg,\" from within which emerges\nBrahma, the creative deity, is the \"circle with the Central\nPoint\" of Pythagoras, and its fitting symbol. In the Secret\nDoctrine the concealed **U**NITY -- whether representing\n**P**ARABRAHMAM, or the \"**G**REAT\n**E**XTREME\" of Confucius, or the Deity concealed\nby **P**HTA, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish\n**E**N-**S**OPH, is always found to\nbe symbolized by a circle or the \"nought\" (absolute\n*No-Thing *and Nothing, because it is *infinite *and\nthe **A**LL); while the god-manifested (by its works)\nis referred to as the *diameter of that circle. *The symbolism\nof the underlying idea is thus made evident: the right line passing\nthrough the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense,\nlength, but neither breadth or thickness: it is an imaginary and\nfeminine symbol, crossing eternity and made to rest on the plane\nof existence *of the phenomenal* *world. *It is\n*dimensional, *whereas its circle is dimensionless, or,\nto use an algebraical term, it is the dimension of an equation.\nAnother way of symbolizing the idea is found in the Pythagorean\nsacred *Decade* which synthesizes, in the dual numeral\nTen (the 1 and a circle or cipher), the absolute **A**LL\nmanifesting itself in the **W**ORD or generative\nPower of Creation.\n\n-------\n\n#### B.\n\n##### THE FALL OF THE CROSS\nINTO MATTER.\n\nThose who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol\nby objecting that it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period\nof\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] of night), when it was\notherwise unseen by men (for as the moon reflects the light of\nthe Sun, so the cat was supposed to reflect it on account of its\nphosphorescent eyes) . . . We might say the moon *mirrored*\nthe solar light, because we have *looking-glasses. *With\nthem the cat's eye was the mirror.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nantiquity the *nought *or cipher occurs for the first time\n-- especially in India -- are referred to Vol. **II.**\nof *\"Isis Unveiled,\" *pp. 299, 300, *et seq.*\n\nAdmitting for argument's sake that the ancient world was not acquainted\nwith our modes of calculation or Arabic figures -- though we know\nit was -- yet the *circle* and* diameter *idea is\nthere to show that it was the *first *symbol in cosmogony.\nBefore the *trigrammes *of Fo-hi, *Yang, *the Unity,\nand *Yin*, the binary , explained cunningly enough by Eliphas\nLevi thus (*Dogme et Rituel, *Vol. I., p. 124): -- China\nhad her Confucius, and her Tau-ists.* The former circumscribes\nthe \"great extreme\" within a circle with a horizontal\nline across; the latter place three concentric circles beneath\nthe great circle, while the *Sung *Sages showed the \"great\nExtreme\" in an upper circle, and Heaven and Earth in two\nlower and smaller circles. The *Yangs *and the *Yins\n*are a far later invention.\n\nPlato and his school never understood the Deity otherwise, many\nepithets of his applied to the \"God over all\" ([[*ho\nepi pasi theos*]]) notwithstanding. Plato having been initiated,\ncould not believe in a personal God -- a gigantic Shadow of Man.\nHis epithets of \"monarch\" and \"Law-giver of the\nUniverse\" bear an abstract meaning well understood by every\nOccultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes in the One\nLaw that governs the Universe, recognizing it at the same time\nas immutable. \"Beyond all *finite* existences,\"\nhe says, \"and *secondary *causes, all laws, ideas\nand principles, there is an **I**NTELLIGENCE or **M**IND\n([[*nous*]]), the first principle of all principles, the\nSupreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded . . . *the\nultimate* substance *from which all things derive their\nbeing and essence,* the first and efficient cause of all the\norder, and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which\npervades the Universe\" -- who is called, by way of preeminence\nand excellence, the Supreme** good \"the god\" ([[*Theos*]]),\nand \"the god over all.\" These words apply, as Plato\nhimself shows, neither to the \"Creator\" nor to the \"Father\"\nof our modern Monotheist, but to the *ideal *and abstract\ncause. For, as he says, \"this [gk char], the god over all,\n*is not the truth or the intelligence,* but the **F**ATHER\nof it,\" and its Primal cause. Is it Plato, the greatest pupil\nof the archaic Sages, a sage himself, for whom there was but a\nsingle object of attainment in this life -- **R**EAL\n**K**NOWLEDGE -- who would have ever believed in\na deity that curses and damns men for ever, on the slightest provocation?***\nNot he, who considered only those to be\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*Also in T'sang-t-ung-ky, by Wei-Pa-Yang.\n\n** Cocker's \"Christianity and Greek Philosophy,\" xi.,\np. 377.\n\n*** The cry of despair uttered by Count de Montlosier in his *Mysteres\nde la Vie* *Humaine, *p. 117, is a warrant that the\nCause of \"excellence and goodness,\" supposed by Plato\nto pervade the Universe is neither *his *Deity, nor *our\n*World. \"Au spectacle de tant [[footnote continued on\nnext page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 555 THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION.\n\ngenuine philosophers and students of truth who possessed the knowledge\nof the *really existing *in opposition to mere seeming;\nof the *always* existing in opposition to the transitory;\nand of that which exists *permanently *in opposition to\nthat which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed alternately.*\nSpeusippus and Xenocrates followed in his footsteps. The **O**NE,\nthe original, had no existence, in the sense applied to it by\nmortal men. \"The [[*timion*]]* *(*honoured\n*one) dwells in the centre as in the circumference, but *it\nis only the reflection* *of the* *Deity* --\nthe world Soul\"** -- the plane of the surface of the circle.\nThe Cross and Circle are a universal conception -- as old as human\nmind itself. They stand foremost on the list of the long series\nof, so to say, international symbols, which expressed very often\ngreat scientific truths, besides their direct bearing upon psychological,\nand even physiological mysteries; and this symbol is precisely\none of this kind, and is based upon the oldest esoteric cosmogony.\n\nIt is no explanation to say, as Eliphas Levi does, that God, the\nuniversal Love, having caused the male *unit* to dig an\nabyss in the female *Binary, *or chaos, produced thereby\nthe world. Besides being as gross a conception as any, it does\nnot remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing one's\nveneration for the rather too human-like ways of the Deity. It\nis to avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates\nnever use the epithet \"God\" to designate the One and\nSecondless Principle in the Universe; and that -- faithful in\nthis to the oldest traditions of the Secret Doctrine the world\nover -- they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean\nwork could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no\nneed to mention here other still greater metaphysical difficulties.\nBetween speculative Atheism and idiotic anthropomorphism there\nmust be a philosophical mean, and a reconciliation. The Presence\nof the Unseen Principle throughout all nature, and the highest\nmanifestation of it on Earth -- MAN, can alone help to solve the\nProblem, which is that of the mathematician whose *x* must\never elude the grasp of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindus have\ntried to solve it by their *avatars, *the Christians *think*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Continued from previous page]] de grandeur oppose a celui de\ntant de misere, l'esprit qui se met a observer ce vaste ensemble,\nse represente je ne sais quelle grande diviniti *qu'une diviniti,\nplus* *grande et plus pressante *encore, aurait comme\nbrisee et mise en pieces en dispersant les debris dans tout l'Univers.\"\nThe \"still greater and still more exacting divinity\"\nthan the god of this world, supposed so \"good\" -- is\n**K**ARMA. And this true Divinity shows well that\nthe lesser one, our *inner* God (personal for the time\nbeing), has no power to arrest the mighty hand of this greater\nDeity, the **C**AUSE awakened by our actions generating\nsmaller causes, which is called the **L**AW OF **R**ETRIBUTION.\n\n* See \"Isis Unveiled,\" *Before the Veil, *xii.\n(Vol. I.).\n\n** Plato: \"Parmenides,\" 141, E.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 556 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthey did it -- by their one divine Incarnation. Exoterically --\nboth are wrong*; esoterically *both of them are very near\nthe truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion,\nPaul seems to have fathomed -- if not actually revealed -- the\narchaic mystery of the Cross. As for the rest of those who, by\nunifying and individualizing the Universal Presence, have thus\nsynthesized it into one symbol -- the central Point in the Crucifix\n-- they have shown thereby that they have never seized the true\nSpirit of the teaching of Christ, and by their interpretations\nthey have degraded it in more than one way. They have forgotten\nthe Spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized\nit -- as though the Boundless and the Infinite can ever be limited\nand conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man,\nor even in a nation!\n\nThe four arms of the \" ,\"\nthe decussated cross, and of the \"Hermetic,\" pointing\nto the four cardinal points -- were well understood by the mystical\nminds of the Hindus, Brahmins and Buddhists, thousands of years\nbefore it was heard of in Europe; and that symbol was and is found\nall over the world. They bent the ends of that cross and made\nof it their *Swastica*\nnow the *Wan *of the Buddhist Mongolian.* It implies that\nthe \"Central point\" is not limited to one individual,\nhowever perfect. That *the* Principle (God) is in Humanity,\nand Humanity, as all the rest, is in it, like drops of water are\nin the Ocean, the four ends being toward the four cardinal points,\nhence losing themselves in infinity.\n\nIsarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, *on the\ndead* *body of *Hermes, the well known *Smaragdine\n*tablet, which, it is said, contained the essence of Hermetic\nwisdom . . . . \"Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile\nfrom the gross . . . . Ascend from the earth to heaven and then\ndescend again to earth\" was traced on it. The *riddle*\nof the cross is contained in these words, and its double mystery\nis solved -- to the Occultist.\n\n\"The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite\ndirections, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and\nbreadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting\npoint, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary,\nwhen it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of\nthe occultist. Within its mystical precinct lies the master-key\nwhich opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual.\nIt symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circum-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *The* Swastica *is certainly one of the oldest\nsymbols of the Ancient Races. In our century, says Kenneth R.\nH. Mackenzie (*Royal Masonic Cyclopeadia*)* *it\n(the Swastica) \"has survived in the form of the mallet\"\nin the Masonic Fraternity. Among the many \"meanings\"\nthe author gives of it, we do not find, however, the most important\none, masons evidently not knowing it.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 557 THE PRIMITIVE CROSS\n\nscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession\nbirth, life, death, and IMMORTALITY.\n\n\" 'Attach thyself,' say the alchemists, 'to the four letters\nof the tetragram disposed in the following manner: The letters\nof the ineffable name are there, although thou mayest not discern\nthem at first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically contained\ntherein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the masters.'\n\" (*\"Isis Unveiled.\"*)\n\nAgain: -- The (Tau), and\nthe astronomical cross of Egypt\nare conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque.\nIn one of the* basso-relievos *of the Palace of Palenque,\non the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right under the\nseated figure, is a *Tau. *The standing figure, which leans\nover the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the\nleft hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right\nwith the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position\nis precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or\nthe one in which Jesus is often represented while at the Last\nSupper. . . . The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head-dress\nwhich he had to wear always during his functions. . . . The perfect\n*Tau*, formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray),\nand a horizontal line (matter, female principle), and the mundane\ncircle was an attribute of Isis, and it is but at death that the\nEgyptian cross was laid on the breast of the mummy.\" These\nsquare hats are worn unto this day by the Armenian priests. The\nclaim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after\nour era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the\nforeheads of the men of Judah, who feared the Lord (*Ezekiel\n*ix. 4), with the *signum* *Thau, *as it is\ntranslated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was\nformed thus , but in the\noriginal Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross\n(*Tat, *the emblem\nof stability). In the *Revelation, *also, the \"Alpha\nand Omega\" (spirit and matter), the first and the last, stamps\nthe name of his Father in the foreheads of the *elect, *(p*.\n*323, Vol.** II.**) Moses, in *Exodus*\nxii*. *22, orders his people to mark their *door-posts\nand lintels *with blood, lest the \"Lord God\" should\nmake a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of\nthe doomed Egyptians. And this mark is a tau! The identical Egyptian\nhandled *cross, *with the half of which talisman Horus\nraised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Philoe.\n\nEnough was said in the text about the *Swastica *and the\n*Tau. *Verily may the Cross be traced back into the very\ndepths of the unfathomable Archaic Ages! Its Mystery deepens rather\nthan clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island --\nin old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as Tau and Swastica,\nin pre-Christian Scandinavia,\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 558 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\neverywhere! The author of the \"Hebrew Egyptian Mystery\"\nstands perplexed before the endless shadow it throws back into\nantiquity, and is unable to trace it to any particular nation\nor man. He shows the *Targums *handed down by the Hebrews,\nobscured by translation. In Joshua (viii. 29) read in *Arabic,\n*and in the *Targum *of* Jonathan, *it is said:\n*\"The king of Ai he crucified upon a tree.\" *The*\nSeptuagint *rendering is of suspension from a *double word\n*(Wordsworth on Joshua.) . . . The strangest expression of\nthis kind is in Numbers xxv. 4, where, by Onkalos (?) it is read:\n\"Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) *against the Sun.\"\n*\"The word here ,\n*to nail to, *is rendered properly (Fuerst) by the Vulgate\n*to crucify. *The very construction of this sentence is\nmystic.\"\n\nSo it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. \"To\ncrucify before (not against) the sun\" is a phrase used of\ninitiation. It comes from Egypt, and primarily from India. The\nenigma can be unriddled only by searching for its key in the Mysteries\nof Initiation. The initiated adept, who had successfully passed\nthrough all the trials, *was attached,* not* nailed,\n*but simply tied on a couch in the form of a *tau*\n(in Egypt) of a *Svastika\n*without the four additional prolongations (thus: ,\nnot ) plunged in a deep\nsleep (the \"Sleep of Siloam\" it is called to this day\namong the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt).\nHe was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three\nnights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to confabulate\nwith the \"gods,\" descend into Hades, Amenti, or Patala,\n(according to the country), and do works of charity to the invisible\nbeings, whether souls of men or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining\nall the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt\nit was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber of the\nPyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the approaching\nthird day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour\nthe beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced\ncandidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the\nGod of Wisdom.\n\nLet the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals\nbefore he denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian\n*bas* *reliefs. *One especially from the temple\nof Philoe, represents a *scene of* *initiation. *Two\nGods-Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other\n*ibis*-headed (Mercury, Thoth, the god of Wisdom and secret\nlearning, the assessor of Osiris-Sun), are standing over the body\nof a candidate just initiated. They are in the act of pouring\non his head a double stream of water (the water of life and new\n*birth*)*,* which stream is interlaced in the shape\nof a cross and full of small ansated crosses. This is allegorical\nof the awakening of the candidate\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 559 ITS EARLY SIGNIFICANCE.\n\n(now an Initiate), when the beams of the morning sun (Osiris)\nstrike the crown of his head (*his entranced body being placed\n*on its wooden *tau so as to receive the rays*)*.\n*Then appeared the Hierophants-Initiators, and the sacramental\nwords were pronounced, ostensibly, to the Sun-Osiris, addressed\nin reality to the Spirit Sun within, enlightening the newly-born\nman. Let the reader meditate on the connection of the Sun with\nthe Cross in both its generative and spiritually regenerative\ncapacities -- from the highest antiquity. Let him examine the\ntomb of Bait-Oxly, in the reign of Ramses **II**.,\nwhere he will find the crosses in every shape and position. So\nagain, on the throne of that sovereign, and finally on a fragment\nfrom the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes **III**.,\npreserved in the National Library of Paris, which represents the\nadoration of Bakhan-Aleare.\n\nIn this extraordinary sculpture and painting one sees the disc\nof the Sun beaming upon an ansated cross placed upon a cross of\nwhich those of the Calvary were perfect copies. The ancient **MSS**.\nmention these as the \"hard couches of those who were in (spiritual)\ntravail, the *act* *of giving birth to themselves.*\"*\n*A quantity of such cruciform \"couches,\" on which\nthe candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his supreme\ninitiation, was placed and secured, were found in the underground\nhalls of the Egyptian temples after their destruction. The worthy\nand holy Fathers of the Cyril and Theophilus types used them freely,\nbelieving they had been brought and concealed there by some new\nconverts. Alone Origen, and after him Clemens Alexandrinus and\nother ex-initiates, knew better. But they preferred to keep silent.\n\nAgain, let the reader read the Hindu \"fables,\" as the\nOrientalists call them, and remember the allegory of Visvakarma,\nthe creative power, the great architect of the world, called in\nthe Veda \"the all-seeing god,\" who \"sacrifices\nhimself to himself\" (the Spiritual Egos of mortals are his\nown essence, *one with him, *therefore). Remember that\nhe is called *Deva Vardhika *\"the builder of the gods\"\nand that it is he who ties (the Sun) Surya, his son-in-law, on\nhis lathe, in the exoteric allegory; on the Swastika, in esoteric\ntradition, as on earth he is the Hierophant Initiator, and cuts\naway a portion of his brightness. Visvakarma, remember again,\nis the Son of Yoga-Siddha, *i.e*., the holy power of Yoga,\nand the fabricator of the \"fiery weapon,\" the magic\nAgneyastra. The narrative is given more fully elsewhere. The author\nof the Kabalistic work so often quoted from, asks: --\n\n\"The theoretical use of crucifixion must have been somehow\nconnected with the personification of this symbol (the structure\nof the garden of Paradise symbolized by a crucified man). But\nhow? And as showing what? The symbol was of the origin of measures,\nshadowing forth *creative law *or* design. *What\npractically, as regards humanity,\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 560 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ncould actual crucifixion betoken? Yet, that it was held as the\neffigy of some mysterious working of the same system, is shown\nfrom the very fact of the use. There seems to be deep below deep\nas to the mysterious workings of these number values -- (the symbolization\nof the connection of 113 : 355, with 20612 : 6561, *by a crucified\nman*)*. *Not only are they shown to work in the Kosmos\n. . . . but by sympathy, they seem to work out conditions relating\nto an unseen and spiritual world, and the prophets seem to have\nheld knowledge of the connecting link. . . . Reflection becomes\nmore involved when it is considered that the power of expression\nof the law, *exactly,* by* numbers, *clearly defining\na system, was not the *accident *of the language, but was\nits very *essence, *and of its *primary organic construction;\n*therefore, neither the language, nor the mathematical system\nattaching to it, *could be of man's invention, *unless\nboth were *founded upon a prior language, which afterwards\nbecame* *obsolete . *. . \" (p. 205).\n\nThe author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals\nthe secret meaning of more than one *dead-letter *narrative,\nby showing that probably\n*man *was the *primordial *word -- \"the very\nfirst word possessed by the Hebrews, whoever they were, to carry\nthe idea by sound of a *man. *The essential of this word\nwas 113 (the numerical value of that word) from the beginning,\nand carried with it the elements of the cosmical system displayed.\"\n\nThis is demonstrated by the Hindu Wittoba -- a form of Vishnu\n-- as said already. The figure of Wittoba, even to the nail-marks\non the feet,* *is that of Jesus crucified, in all its details\n*save the Cross; and that MAN was meant is proved to us further\nby the fact of the *Initiate being* *reborn after his\ncrucifixion on the *TREE OF LIFE. This \"tree\" has\nnow become exoterically, through its use by the Romans as an instrument\nof torture, and the ignorance of the early Christian schemers,\nthe *tree of* *death!*\n\nThus, one of the *seven esoteric meanings *implied in this\nmystery of Crucifixion by the mystic inventors of the system --\nthe original elaboration and adoption of which dates back to the\nvery establishment of the MYSTERIES -- is discovered in the geometrical\nsymbols containing the history of the evolution of man. The Hebrews,\nwhose prophet Moses was so learned in the esoteric Wisdom of Egypt,\nand who adopted their numerical system from the Phoenicians, and\nlater from the Gentiles, from whom they borrowed most of their\nKabalistic Mysticism, adapted, most ingeniously, the Cosmic and\nanthropological symbols of the \"heathen\" nations to\ntheir peculiar *secret *records. If Christian\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Moor's Hindu Pantheon, where Wittoba's left foot bears the\nmark of the\n\nnail -- on the figure of his idol.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 561 THE MEANING OF THE CRUCIFIXION.\n\nsacerdotalism has lost the key of it to-day, the early compilers\nof the Christian Mysteries were well versed in Esoteric philosophy\nand the Hebrew occult metrology, and used it dexterously. Thus\nthey took the word *aish *(one of the Hebrew word forms\nfor MAN) and used it in conjunction with that of *Shanah *\"lunar\nyear,\" so mystically connected with the name of Jehovah,\nthe supposed \"father\" of Jesus, and embosomed the mystic\nidea in an astronomical value and formula.\n\nThe original idea of \"Man Crucified\" in Space belongs\ncertainly to the ancient Hindus, and Muir shows it in his \"Hindu\nPantheon\" in the engraving that represents Wittoba. Plato\nadopted it in his decussated Cross in Space, the\n, \"the Second God who impressed himself on the Universe in\nthe form of the Cross\"; Krishna is likewise shown \"crucified.\"\n(See Dr. Lundy's *Monumental Christianity, *fig. 72.) Again\nit is repeated in the Old Testament in the queer injunction *to\ncrucify men* before the Lord, *the Sun -- *which is\nno prophecy at all, but has a direct phallic significance. In\n§ **II**. of that same most suggestive work\non the Kabalistic meanings -- \"The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery,\"\nwe read again: --\n\n\"In symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of\nthe heads thereof a solid pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal\nshaft, or phallic emblem, for the nail. Taking the position of\nthe *three *nails in the Man's extremities and on the cross,\nthey form or mark a *triangle *in shape, one nail being\nat each corner of the triangle. The wounds or *stigmata *in\nthe extremities are necessarily *four *designative of the\n*square*. . . . The *three *nails with the *three*\nwounds are in number 6, which denotes the 6 faces of the cube\n*unfolded *(which make the cross or man-form, or 7, counting\nthree horizontal and four vertical bars) on which the man is placed;\nand this in turn points to the circular measure transferred on\nto the edges of the cube. The *one* wound of the feet separates\ninto *two* when the feet are separated, making *three*\ntogether* for all, *and *four when* *separated,\n*or 7 in all -- another *most holy *(and* with the\nJews*)* *feminine base number.\"\n\nThus, while the phallic or sexual meaning of the \"Crucifixion\nNails\" is proven by the geometrical and numerical reading,\nits mystical meaning is indicated by the short remarks upon it,\nas given above, in its connection with, and bearing upon, Prometheus.\nHe is another victim, for he is crucified on the Cross of Love,\non the rock of human passions, a sacrifice to his devotion to\nthe cause of the spiritual element in Humanity.\n\nNow, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the\nidea of the Cross, is not \"of human invention,\" for\nCosmic ideation and the Spiritual representation of the divine\nEgo-man are at its basis. Later, it expanded in the beautiful\nidea adopted by and represented in the Mysteries, that of regenerated\nman, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions\non the\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 562 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nProcrustean bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal. Leaving\nthe body, the animal-man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation\nlike an empty chrysalis, the Ego Soul became as free as a butterfly.\nStill later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality, the cross\nbecame in Cosmogony and Anthropology no *higher than a phallic\nsymbol.*\n\nWith the Esotericists, from the remotest times the Universal Soul\nor *anima mundi, *the material reflection of the Immaterial\nIdeal, was the Source of Life of all beings and of the life principle\nof the three kingdoms; and it was *Septenary *with the\nHermetic philosophers, as with all ancients. For it is represented\nas a Sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively, *light,\nheat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral* *radiation,\nmotion, *and* Intelligence, *or what some call self-consciousness.\n\nWe have said it elsewhere. Long before the cross or its sign were\nadopted as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was\nused as a sign of recognition among adepts and neophytes, the\nlatter being called* Chrests *(from Chrestos, man of tribulation\nand sorrow). Says E. Levi: \"The sign of the cross adopted\nby the Christians does not belong exclusively to them. It is Kabalistic,\nand represents the opposition and quaternary equilibrium of the\nelements. We see by the Occult verse of the *Paternoster *that\nthere were originally two ways of making it, or, at least *two\n*very different formulas to express its meaning -- one reserved\nfor *priests-initiates, *the other given to neophites and\nthe profane. Thus, for example, the *initiate, *carrying\nhis hand to his forehead, said: *To thee; *then he added,\n*belong: *and continued, while carrying his hand to the\nbreast -- *the kingdom; *then, to the left shoulder --\n*justice: *to the right shoulder -- *and mercy. *Then\nhe joined the two hands, adding: *throughout the generating\ncycles: 'Tibi sunt Malchut et* *Geburah et Chassed per\nAeonas' -- *a sign of the Cross, *absolutely* and magnificently\nkabalistic, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant\nand official Church completely *lose.\" *(*Dogma\net Ritual, *etc., Vol. II., p. 88.)\n\nThe \"militant and official Church\" did more: having\nhelped herself to what had never belonged to her, she took only\nthat which the \"profane\" had, the Kabalistic meaning\nof the *male *and* female* Sephiroth. She never\nlost the *inner *and higher meaning since she never had\nit -- E. Levi's pandering to Rome, notwithstanding. The sign of\nthe cross adopted by the Latin Church was *phallic *from\nthe beginning, while that of the Greeks was the cross of the *neophytes,\n*the **C**HREST.\n\n------\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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