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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 49,
    "slug": "99-vii-scientific-and-geological-proofs",
    "title": "VII. SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 10237,
    "text": "## VII. SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 3, ch 7\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 778 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n#### § VII.\nSCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE\nEXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS.\n\n**I**T may not be amiss -- for the benefit of those who resolve\nthe tradition of a lost Miocene Atlantis into an \"antiquated\nmyth,\" to append a few scientific admissions on this point.\nScience, it is true, is largely indifferent to such questions.\nBut there are Scientists ready to admit that, in any case, a cautious\nagnosticism as to geological problems concerning the remote past\nis far more philosophical than *a priori *denial, or even\nhasty generalizations on insufficient data.\n\nMeanwhile two very interesting instances, that have been lately\nmet with, may be pointed out as \"confirming\" certain\npassages in the letter of a Master, published in \"Esoteric\nBuddhism.\" The eminence of the authorities will not be questioned:\n--\n\n[[First Column]]\n\nExtract from p. 61 of \"Esoteric Buddhism.\"\n\nNo. 1.\n\n\"The sinking of the Atlantis (the group of continents and\nislands) began during the Eocene period . . . . and it culminated\nin the Miocene, first in the *final disappearance of the largest,\nan event coincident with the elevation of the Alps, *and second\nin the sinking of the last of the fair islands mentioned by Plato.\"\n\n[[First Column continued on next page]]\n\n[[Second Column]]\n\nExtract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, **F.R.S**.,\n**F.G.S**.\n\nNo. 1.\n\n\"Was there, as some have believed, an Atlantis -- a continent\nor Archipelago of large islands occupying the area of the North\nAtlantic? There is, perhaps, nothing unphilosophical in the hypothesis.\nFor since, as geologists state, '*The Alps have acquired 4,000\nand even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their present\naltitude since the commencement of the Eocene epoch*'* *(Lyell's\nPrinciples 2nd Ed. p. 256*.*)* *-- a* post-Miocene\ndepression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost\nabysmal depths.*\"***\n\n[[Second Column continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Having already given several instances of the vagaries of Science,\nit is delightful to find such *agreement *in this particular\ncase. Read in connection with the scientific admission (cited\nelsewhere) of the geologists' ignorance of even the approximate\nduration of periods, the following passage is highly instructive:\n\"We are not yet able to assign an *approximate *date\nfor the most recent epoch at which our Northern Hemisphere was\ncovered with glaciers. According to Mr. Wallace, this epoch may\nhave occurred *seventy thousand years *ago, while others\nwould assign to it an antiquity of at least *two hundred thousand\n*years, and there are yet others who urge strong arguments\non behalf of the opinion that a *million of years *is barely\nenough to have produced the changes which have taken place since\nthat event.\" (Fiske, \"*Cosmic* [[Footnote continued\non next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 779 GEOLOGY CORROBORATES OCCULTISM.\n\n[[First Column continued from previous page]]\n\nNo. 2.\n\n\"Lemuria cannot any more be confounded with the Atlantis\ncontinent than Europe with America. Both sank and were drowned\nwith all their 'gods'; yet, between the two catastrophes a short\nperiod of about some 700,000 years elapsed; Lemuria flourishing\nand ending her career just about that trifling lapse of time before\nthe early *Eocene *Age, since its Race was the Third. Behold\n*the relics of that once great race in some of the flat-headed\naborigines of your ***A**USTRALIA.\" (\"Esoteric\nBuddhism,\" p. 55*.*)\n\n[[Second Column continued from previous page]]\n\nNo. 2.\n\n\"It would be premature to say, because no evidence has yet\nbeen adduced, *that men may not have existed in the Eocene Age,\n*especially as it can be shown that *a race of men, the lowest\nwe know of, co-exists with that remnant of the Eocene flora which\nstill survives on the continent and islands of Australia.*\"*\n*(Extract from an article in \"Popular Science Review,\"\nVol. V. p. 18, by Professor Seemann, Ph.D., **F.L.S**.,\n**P.A.S**.).\n\nHaeckel, who fully accepts the reality of a former Lemuria, also\nregards the *Australians as direct descendants of the Lemurians.\n*\"Persistent forms (of both his Lemurian stems,) are in\nall probability still surviving . . . Papuans and Hottentots .\n. . *Australians *. . . one division of the Malays.\"\n\n[[End of Columns]]\n\nWith regard to a former civilization, of which a *portion *of\nthese degraded Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the\nopinion of Gerland is strongly suggestive. Commenting upon the\nreligion and mythology of the tribes, he writes, \"The statement\nthat the Australian civilization (?) indicates a *higher grade,\n*is nowhere more clearly proved than here, where *everything\nresounds like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age.\n*The idea that the Australians have no religion or mythology\nis thoroughly false. But this religion is certainly *quite deteriorated.*\"*\n*(Cited in Schmidt's \"*Doctrine of Descent of Darwinism,*\"*\n*pp.* *301-2.) As to his other statement, namely, that\nthe Australians are a \"division of the Malays\" (*Vide\n*his ethnological theories in the \"*Pedigree of Man*\")*,\n*Haeckel is in error, if he classes the Australians with the\nrest. The Malays and Papuans are a *mixed *stock, resulting\nfrom the intermarriages of the low Atlantean sub-races with the\nSeventh sub-race of the Third Root-Race. Like the Hottentots,\nthey are of indirect *Lemuro-Atlantean *descent. It is a\nmost suggestive fact -- to those concrete thinkers who demand\na *physical *proof of Karma -- that the lowest races of men\nare now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary\nsterility setting in among the women, from the time that they\nwere first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation\nis taking\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]]* Philosophy,*\"*\nVol. *II., p. 304). Prof. Lefevre, again, gives us as *his\n*estimate 100,000 years. Clearly, then, if modern Science is\nunable to estimate the date of so comparatively recent an era\nas the Glacial Epoch, it can hardly impeach the Esoteric Chronology\nof Race-Periods and Geological Ages.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 780 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nplace all over the globe, among those races, whose \"time\nis up\" -- among just those stocks, be it remarked, which\nesoteric philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost\narchaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction\nof a lower race is *invariably *due to cruelties or abuses\nperpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., etc.,\nhave done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an\nall-sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx\nof facts now so closely arrayed. \"Nothing,\" says even\nthe materialist Lefevre, \"can save *those that have run\ntheir course*. . . . It would be necessary to extend their\n*destined cycle*. . . . *The peoples that have been most\nspared *. . . *Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less decimated\nthan the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion.*\"*\n*(\"*Philosophy,*\"* *p. 508.)\n\nTrue; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed of the operation\nof **C**YCLIC **L**AW difficult to account for on materialist\nlines? Whence the \"destined cycle\" and the order here\ntestified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root\nout certain races at their \"appointed hour\"? The answer\nthat it is due to a \"mental disproportion\" between the\ncolonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it\ndoes not explain the sudden \"*checks to fertility*\"*\n*which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians,\nfor instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day.\nEthnology will sooner or later have to recognize with Occultists\nthat the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension\nof the workings of Karma. As Lefevre remarks, \"the time is\ndrawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human\ntypes\" (before the Sixth Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan,\nFifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the African negro -- with their\ncrossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans,\nAustralians, Polynesians, etc., etc. -- all are dying out. Those\nwho realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven\nsub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the \"why.\"\nThe tide-wave of incarnating **E**GOS has rolled past them\nto harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks;\nand their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity. Some extraordinary\nand *unexplained *statistics as to Race extinction are given\nin de Quatrefages' \"*Human Species,*\" p. 428 *et\nseq. *No solution, except on the occult lines, is able to account\nfor these.\n\nBut we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now\nwhat Professor Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic\nand Pacific Continents.\n\nHe writes in \"**N**ATURE,\" Nov. 4th, 1880: \"There\nis nothing, so far as I am aware, in the biological or geological\nevidence at present accessible, to render untenable the hypothesis\nthat *an area of the mid*-\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 781 TRADITION AS TRUE AS HISTORY.\n\n*Atlantic or Pacific sea-bed as big as Europe, *should have\nbeen uplifted as high as Mont Blanc, and have subsided again,\nany time since the Palaeozoic epoch, if there were any grounds\nfor entertaining it.\"\n\nThat is to say, then, that there is nothing which can militate\nagainst *positive *evidence to the fact; nothing, therefore,\nagainst the geological postulates of the Esoteric Philosophy.\nDr. Seemann assures us in the \"Popular Science Review\"\n(Vol. V., p. 18), article \"*Australia and Europe formerly\none Continent,*\"** *that: --\n\n\"The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing\nthese lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; and they\nhave not been backward in demonstrating the former existence of\nlarge tracts of solid land in parts now occupied by the great\noceans. The many striking points of contact between the present\nflora of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume\nthat, during the present order of things, there existed a continental\nconnection between South-Eastern Asia and Western America. The\nsingular correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United\nStates with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them to\nbelieve that, *in the Miocene period, Europe and America were\nconnected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the\nother Atlantic islands are remnants*;* that, in fact, the\nstory of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon,\nis not purely fictitious, but rests on a solid historical basis*.\n. . . Europe of the Eocene period received the plants which spread\nover mountains and plains, valleys and river-banks (from Asia\ngenerally), neither exclusively from the South nor from the East.\nThe west also furnished additions, and if at that period these\nwere rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the bridge\nwas already building, which, at a late period, was to facilitate\ncommunication between the two continents in such a remarkable\nmanner. At that time some plants of the Western Continent began\nto reach Europe by means of the *island of Atlantis, *then\nprobably just rising (?) above the ocean.\"\n\nAnd in another number of the same review (Vol. I., p. 143) Mr.\nDuppa Crotch, **M.A**., **F.L.S**.,\nin an article entitled \"*The Norwegian Lemming and its\nMigrations,*\"* *alludes to the same subject.\n\n\"Is it probable that land could have existed where now the\nbroad Atlantic rolls? All tradition says so: old Egyptian records\nspeak of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have told us. The Sahara\nitself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are\nfound upon its surface\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Undoubtedly a fact and a confirmation of the esoteric conception\nof the Lemuria which originally not only embraced great areas\nin the Indian and Pacific oceans, but projected round South Africa\ninto the North Atlantic. Its Atlantic portion subsequently became\nthe geological basis of the future home of the Fourth Race Atlanteans.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 782 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nprove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled\nover what is now desert. The voyage of the 'Challenger' has proved\nthe existence of *three long ridges* in the Atlantic Ocean,**\none extending for more than three thousand miles, *and lateral\nspurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for *the marvellous\nsimilarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.*** *. . .\n. The submerged continent of **L**EMURIA, in what is now the\nIndian Ocean, *is considered to afford an explanation of many\ndifficulties in the distribution of organic life, *and, I think,\nthe existence of a **M**IOCENE **A**TLANTIS will be found\nto have a *strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater\ninterest *[Truly So!] than the migration of the lemming. At\nall events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages\nwhere the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found\nfor these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral\nproof that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes\neven prejudicial inheritance of previously acquired experiences.\"\n\n(At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim\nto sea and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway,\nthe powerful instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance\nfrom their progenitors impels them to seek a continent, once existing\nbut now submerged beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave.)\n\nIn an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace's \"Island\nLife\" -- a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution\nof animals, etc. -- Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes (\"Subsidence\nand Elevation,\" Geological Magazine, June, 1881): --\n\n\"By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of\nfacts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the\ndistribution of life upon the land as we now see it, has been\naccomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative\npositions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views,\nwe must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New\nZealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at\nsome period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth\nof 1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as\nutterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Cf. the published reports of the \"Challenger\" expedition;\nalso Donnelly's \"Atlantis,\" p. 468 and pp. 46-56, chap.\n\"*The Testimony of the Sea.*\"\n\n** Even the cautious Lefevre speaks of the existence of *Tertiary\n*men on \"upheaved lands, islands and continents then flourishing,\nbut since submerged beneath the waters,\" and elsewhere introduces\na \"*possible *Atlantis\" to explain ethnological\nfacts. Cf. his \"*Philosophy,*\"* Eng. Ed., pp.\n*478 and 504. Mr. Donnelly remarks with rare intuition that\n\"modern civilization is *Atlantean *. . . . the '*inventive*'*\nfaculty of the present age is taking up the delegated work of\nCreation where Atlantis left it thousands of years ago*\"\n(Atlantis, p. 133). He also refers the origin of culture to the\n*Miocene *times. It is, however, to be sought for in the\nteachings given to the *Third Race*-men by their Divine Rulers\n-- at a vastly earlier period.\n\n*** An equally \"curious\" similarity is traced between\nsome of the West Indian and West African fauna.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 783 ATLANTIS, NECESSARY TO ETHNOLOGY.\n\nall the evidences at our command (!!), the supposition that temperate\nEurope and temperate America, Australia, and South America, have\never been connected except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic circles\nand that lands now separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms\ndepth have ever been united. Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted,\nhas succeeded in explaining the chief features of existing life-distribution,\nwithout bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the Poles,\nyet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts *might perhaps\nbe more easily explained by admitting the former existence of\nthe connection between the coast of Chile and Polynesia* and Great\nBritain and Florida, *shadowed by the submarine banks which\nstretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders the more direct\nconnection impossible, and no *physical reason is advanced why\nthe floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth.\n*The route by which (according to the anti-Atlantean and Lemurian\nhypotheses of Wallace) the *floras *of South America and\nAustralia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable\nobstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of sub-tropical\nAmerican plants in our Eocene flora, necessitates a connection\nmore to the south than the present 1,000 fathom line . . . . forces\nare unceasingly acting, and there is *no reason why an elevating\nforce once set in action in the centre of an ocean should cease\nto act until a continent is formed. *They have acted and lifted\nout from the sea, in comparatively recent geological times, the\nloftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits repeatedly\nthat sea-beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms and islands have\nrisen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to suppose that\nthe upheaving forces are limited in power, is, it seems to me,\n'utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences\nat our command.' \"\n\nThe \"Father\" of English Geology -- Sir Charles Lyell\n-- was an Uniformitarian in his views of continental formation.\nOn page 492 of his \"Antiquity of Man\" we find him saying:\n--\n\n\"Professor Unger (Die versunkene Insel Atlantis) and Heer\n(Flora Tertiaria Helvetiae) have admitted on botanical grounds\nthe *former existence of an Atlantic Continent during some part\nof the Tertiary Period*, as affording the only plausible explanation\nthat can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora\nof central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America.\nProfessor Oliver, on the other hand, after showing how many of\nthe American types found fossil in Europe are common to Japan,\ninclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the\nmigration of species, to which the community of types in the Eastern\nStates of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due,\ntook place when there was an overland communication from America\nto central Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of\nlatitude, or south of Behring Straits, following the direction\nof the Aleutian islands. By this course they *may *have made\ntheir way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or Pleistocene, antecedently\nto the Glacial Epoch, to Amoorland, on the East coast of North\nAsia.\"\n\nThe unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in\norder to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really\ntoo\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The Pacific portion of the giant Lemurian Continent christened\nby Dr. Carter Blake, the anthropologist, \"Pacificus.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 784 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\napparent to escape notice. *If the botanical evidences stood\nalone, *scepticism would be half legitimate; but in this case\nall branches of science converge to one point. Science has made\nblunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than the admission\nof our two now invisible continents, would lay it open to. It\nhas denied even the undeniable, from the days of the mathematician\nLaplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago.* We have\nProfessor Huxley's authority for saying that there is no *a\npriori* improbability whatever against possible evidences supporting\nthe belief. (*Vide supra.*) But now that the POSITIVE EVIDENCE\n*is brought forward, *will that eminent scientist admit the\ncorollary?\n\nTouching on the problem in another place (\"*Principles\nof Geology,*\"* *pp. 12-13), Sir Charles Lyell tells\nus: \"Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we\ngather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who\nborrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others\nthat of the former successive destruction and renovation of the\nworld. (*Continental, *not cosmic, catastrophes.) We learn\nfrom Plutarch that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus,\nso celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by\nhim from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his verses,\nas in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the duration\nof every successive World. The returns of great catastrophes were\ndetermined by the present period of the Magnus Annus, or great\nyear -- a cycle composed of the revolutions of the sun, moon,\nand planets, and terminating when these return together to the\nsign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to set out.\nWe learn particularly from the *Timaeus *of Plato *that\nthe Egyptians believed the world to be subject to occasional conflagrations\nand deluges. *The sect of the Stoics adopted most fully the\nsystem of catastrophes destined at intervals to destroy the world.\nThese, they taught, were of two kinds -- the cataclysm, *or*\n*destruction by water, *and the *Ecpyrosis, or destruction\nby fire *(submarine volcanoes). From the Egyptians they derived\nthe doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of\ninnocence\" (nascent simplicity of the first sub-races of\neach Root-Race). \"Towards the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* When Howard read, before the Royal Society of London, a paper\non the first serious researches that were made on the aerolites,\nthe Geneva naturalist Pictet, who was present, communicated, on\nhis return to Paris, the facts reported to the French Academy\nof Sciences. But he was forthwith interrupted by Laplace, the\ngreat astronomer, who cried: \"Stop! we have had enough of\nsuch *fables, *and know all about them,\" thus making\nPictet feel very small. Globular-shaped lightnings or thunderbolts\nhave been admitted by Science only since Arago demonstrated their\nexistence, says de Rochat (\"*Forces non-definies,*\"*\n*p. 4): \"Every one remembers Dr. Bouilland's misadventure\nat the Academy of Medicine when he had declared Edison's phonograph\n*'a trick of ventriloquism! ` *\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 785 ASTRAEA FALLS ON HER HEAD.\n\ntermination of each era the gods could no longer bear with the\nwickedness of man, and a shock of the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed\nthem; (vide degeneracy into magical practices and gross animality\nof the Atlanteans) after which calamity, Astraea again descended\non the earth to renew the golden age.\" (Dawn of a new Root-Race.)\n\n*Astraea, *the goddess of justice, is the last of the deities\nto forsake the earth, when the gods are said to abandon it and\n*be taken up into heaven by Jupiter again. *But, no sooner\ndoes Zeus carry away from earth Ganymedes (the object of *lust,\n*personified) than the father of the gods throws down Astraea\nback on the earth again, on which she *falls upon her head.\n*Astraea is *Virgo, *the constellation of the Zodiac.\nAstronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which\ngives the Key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from\n*Leo, *the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and\ntheir sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant\nleader. All of these are connected with the periodical renovations\nof the earth, with regard to its continents -- even Ganymedes,\nwho in astronomy is Aquarius. It was already shown that while\nthe South Pole is the *pit *(or the infernal regions figuratively\nand cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the first\ncontinent; while astronomically and metaphorically the celestial\npole, with its pole star in *heaven, *is Meru, or the seat\nof Brahma, the throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when the\ngods forsook the earth and were said to ascend into heaven, the\necliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the\nZodiac appeared to descend from the north pole to the north horizon.\nAldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000\nyears ago, at the great festival in commemoration of that Magnus\nAnnus, of which Plutarch was speaking. Since that year (40,000\nyears ago) there has been a retrograde motion of the equator,\nand about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the\nvernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to *Taurus, *even\nin Christian mysticism, is too well known to need repetition.\nThe famous Orphic hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges\nthe whole esotericism of the event. Pluto (in the pit) carries\noff Eurydice, bitten by the (polar) serpent. Then Leo, the *lion,\n*is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is *in the pit, *or\nbelow the south pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him,\nand when her head, down to the waist, is *below *the South\nhorizon -- she is *inverted. *On the other hand, the Hyades\nare the rain or *Deluge *constellations; and *Aldebaran\n*(he who follows, or *succeeds *the daughters of Atlas,\nor the Pleiades) looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from\nthis point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle\nwere commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes\n(*Aquarius*)* *is raised to\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 786 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nheaven (or above the horizon of the North Pole) *Virgo *or\nAstraea, who *is Venus-Lucifer, *descends head downwards\nbelow the horizon of the South Pole, or the pit; which *pit*,\nor the pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the student\nexercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more\ncan be said.\n\n\"The connection,\" comments Lyell, \"between the\ndoctrine of successive catastrophes and repeated deteriorations\nin the moral character of the human race, is more intimate and\nnatural than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude state\nof society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as\njudgments of God on the wickedness of man. . . . In like manner\nin the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion\nof the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after\nrepeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that *the event happened\nwhen Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the inhabitants.*\"\n\nTrue; but was it not owing to the fact that all esoteric truths\nwere given out to the public by the Initiates of the temples *under\nthe guise of allegories? *\"Jupiter,\" is merely the\npersonification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which arrests the\ndownward tendency of each Root-Race, after attaining the zenith\nof its glory.* Unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske's singularly\ndogmatic opinion** that *every* myth \"is an explanation\nby the uncivilized mind, of some natural phenomenon; not an allegory,\nnot an esoteric symbol, for the ingenuity is wasted (! !) which\nstrives to detect in myths the remnants of a refined primeval\nscience -- but an explanation. Primitive men had no profound science\nto perpetuate by means of allegory [How does Mr. Fiske know?],\nnor were they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain\nlanguage would serve their purpose.\" We venture to say the\nlanguage of the *Initiated *few* *was far more \"plain,\"\nand their science-philosophy far more com-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The Cyclic Law of Race-Evolution is most unwelcome to scientists.\nIt is sufficient to mention the fact of \"primeval civilization\"\nto excite the frenzy of Darwinians; it being obvious that the\nfurther culture and science is pushed back, the more precarious\nbecomes the basis of the ape-ancestor theory. But as Jacolliot\nsays: -- \"Whatever there may be in these traditions (submerged\ncontinents, etc.), and whatever may have been the place where\na civilization more ancient than that of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt,\nand of India, was developed, *it is certain that this civilization\ndid exist, *and it is highly important for Science to recover\nits traces, however feeble and fugitive they be.\" (*Histoire\ndes Vierges*;* les peuples et les continents disparus, p.\n*15*.*)* *Donnelly has proved the fact from the clearest\npremises, but the Evolutionists will not listen. A *Miocene\n*civilization upsets the \"universal stone-age\" theory,\nand that of a *continuous *ascent of man from animalism!\nAnd yet Egypt, at least, runs counter to current hypotheses. There\nis no stone-age visible there, but a more glorious culture is\napparent, the further back we are enabled to carry our retrospect.\n(Verb. Sap.)\n\n** \"Myths and Myth-Makers,\" p. 21.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 787 INGENIOUS EXPLANATIONS.\n\nprehensive and satisfying alike to the physical and *spiritual\n*wants of man, than even the terminology and system respectively\nelaborated by Mr. Fiske's Master -- Herbert Spencer. What, however,\nis Sir Charles Lyell's \"explanation\" of the \"myth\"?\nCertainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its \"astronomical\"\norigin, as asserted by some writers.\n\nThe two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another.\nLyell's solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes,\nfrom the absence (?) of any reliable historical data on the point,\nas well as from a strong bias to the Uniformitarian conceptions\nof geologic changes,* he attempts to trace the Atlantis \"tradition\"\nto the following sources: --\n\n(1) Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God,\nwho is assumed in this way to punish immoral races.\n\n(2)* Hence *the commencement of a new race is logically a\nvirtuous one.\n\n(3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition\nwas Asia -- a continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated\naccounts would thus be handed down the ages.\n\n(4) Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based\nher not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal\ntraditions.\n\nAn ingenious \"explanation,\" as all such are. But proving\na negative is proverbially a difficult task. Students of esoteric\nscience, who know what the resources of the Egyptian priesthood\nreally were, need no such laboured hypothesis. Moreover, while\nan imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a reasonable\nsolution of problems which, in one branch of science, seem to\nnecessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on\nthe surface of our planet, the impartial critic, who is not a\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Violent minor cataclysms and colossal earthquakes are recorded\nin the annals of most nations -- if not of all. Elevation and\nsubsidence of continents is always in progress. The whole coast\nof South America has been raised up 10 to 15 feet and settled\ndown again in an hour. Huxley has shown that the British islands\nhave been four times depressed beneath the ocean and subsequently\nraised again and peopled. The Alps, Himalayas and Cordilleras\nwere all the result of depositions drifted on to sea-bottoms and\nupheaved by Titanic forces to their present elevation. The Sahara\nwas the basin of a Miocene sea. Within the last five or six thousand\nyears the shores of Sweden, Denmark and Norway have risen from\n200 to 600 feet; in Scotland there are raised beaches with outlying\nstacks and skerries *surmounting *the shore now eroded by\nthe hungry wave. The North of Europe is still rising from the\nsea and South America presents the phenomenon of raised beaches\nof over 1,000 miles in length, now at a height varying from 100\nto 1,300 feet above the sea-level. On the other hand, the coast\nof Greenland is sinking fast, so much so that the Greenlander\nwill not build by the shore. All these phenomena are certain.\n*Why may not a gradual change have given place to a violent\ncataclysm in remote epochs? -- *such cataclysms occurring on\na *minor scale *even now (*e.g*., the case of Sunda\nisland with 80,000 Malays).\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 788 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nspecialist, will recognise the immense difficulty of explaining\naway the *cumulative* evidences, -- namely, the archaeological,\nethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even biological\n-- in favour of former continents now submerged. When each science\nis fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence\nin its collectivity is almost invariably lost sight of.\n\nIn the \"*Theosophist*\"* *(August, 1880), we\nwrote: \"We have as evidences the most ancient traditions\nof various and wide-separated peoples -- legends in India, in\nancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal\nisles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among\nsavages; and in the traditions of the richest literature in the\nworld -- the Sanskrit literature of India -- there is an agreement\nin saying, that, ages ago, *there existed in the Pacific Ocean,\na large Continent, which by a geological cataclysm was engulfed\nby the sea,* *(Lemuria). And it is our firm belief . . . that\nmost, if not all, of the islands from the Malayan archipelago\nto Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent.\nBoth Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of\nthe ocean, and which, since the memory of man never had, and never\ncould have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other,\nhave yet a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that\ntheir respective countries extended far, far into the Sea: that\nthere were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited\nby yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command\nof the gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling,\nswallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical proof that\nNew Zealand, the Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance\nfrom each other of between 800 and 1,000 leagues, and that, according\nto every testimony, neither these nor any other intermediate islands,\nfor instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian, Samoan,\nand other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant\nas their people were of the compass, have communicated with each\nother before the arrival of Europeans; yet they one and all maintain\nthat their respective countries extended far toward the West,\non the Asian side. Moreover, with very small differences, they\nall speak dialects evidently of the same language; and understand\neach other with little difficulty; have the same religious beliefs\nand superstitions; and pretty much the same customs. And as few\nof the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a century\nago, the Pacific Ocean itself being unknown to Europe till the\ndays of Columbus, and as these islanders have never ceased repeating\nthe same old traditions since the Europeans first set\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* For the opinions of Jacolliot, after long travels through the\nPolynesian Islands and his proofs of a former great geological\ncataclysm in the Pacific Ocean, see his \"*Histoire des\nVierges*:* Peuples et Continents disparus,*\"* *p.\n308.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 789 HAECKEL FOR ONCE IS RIGHT.\n\nfoot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that\nour theory is nearer to the truth than any other. \"Chance\nwould have to change its name and meaning, were all this due but\nto chance alone.\"\n\n\"A great series of animal-geographical facts,\" declares\nProfessor Schmidt, writing in defence of the hypothesis of a former\nLemuria, \"is explicable only on the theory of the former\nexistence of *a Southern Continent of which Australia is a remnant*.\n.* *. . . \" [the distribution of species] \"points\nto the vanished land of the South where perhaps the *home of\nthe progenitors of the Maki of Madagascar *may also be looked\nfor.\"*\n\nMr. A. R. Wallace, in his \"Malay Archipelago,\" arrives\nat the following conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence\nat hand: -- \"The inference that we must draw from these facts\nis undoubtedly that the whole of the islands eastwards beyond\nBorneo and Sumatra do essentially form part of *a former Australian\nor Pacific Continent *. . . This continent must have been broken\nup before the extreme south-eastern portion of Asia was raised\nabove the waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land of\nBorneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation.\"\n\nAccording to Haeckel: -- \"Southern Asia itself was not the\nearliest cradle of the human race, but *Lemuria, a continent\nthat lay to the South of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface\nof the Indian Ocean.*\"* *(\"*Pedigree of Man,*\"*\nEng. Trans. p. *73.) In one sense Haeckel is right as to Lemuria\n-- the \"cradle of the Human race.\" That continent *was*\nthe home of the first *physical *Human Stock -- the later\nThird-Race Men. Previous to that epoch the Races were far less\nconsolidated and physiologically quite different. (Haeckel makes\nLemuria extend from *Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar *and\neastwards *to Upper India.*)\n\nProfessor Rutimeyer, the eminent Palaeontologist, asks: -- \"Need\nthe conjecture that the almost exclusively graminivorous and insectivorous\nmarsupials, sloths, armadilloes, ant-eaters and ostriches, once\npossessed an actual point of union in *a Southern Continent\nof which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and Australia must\nbe the remains -- *need this conjecture raise difficulties\nat a moment when from their fossil remains, Heer restores to sight\nthe ancient forests of Smith's Sound and Spitzbergen.\" (*Cited\nin Schmidt*'*s *\"*Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,*\"*\np*. 237.)\n\nHaving now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude\non the two questions, it will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable\nbrevity, if we sum up the more striking isolated facts in favour\nof that fundamental contention of Esoteric Ethnologists -- the\nreality of Atlantis. Lemuria\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,*\"*\n*p. 236. (Cf. also his lengthy arguments on the subject, pp.\n231-7.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 790 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nis so widely accepted, that further pursuit of the subject is\nunnecessary. With regard, however, to the former, it is found\nthat: --\n\n(1) The Miocene flora of Europe have their most numerous and striking\nanalogues in the flora of the United States. In the forests of\nVirginia and Florida are found the magnolias, tulip-trees, evergreen\noaks, plane trees, etc., etc., etc., which correspond with European\nTertiary flora term for term. How was the migration effected,\nif we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging the\nocean between America and Europe? The proposed \"explanation\"\nto the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian\nislands is a mere uncalled-for theory, obviously upset by the\nfact that a large number of these flora *only appear *EAST*\nof the Rocky Mountains. *This also negatives the idea of a\ntrans-Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European continents\nand islands to the North.\n\n(2) Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear *a*\n*striking similarity to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians\n*(Littre). Monuments have been exhumed in Central America,\nwhich bear *representations of undoubted negro heads and faces.\n*How are such facts to be accounted for except on the Atlantean\nhypothesis? What is now N. W. Africa was once connected with Atlantis\nby a network of islands, few of which now remain.\n\n(3) According to Farrar (\"*Families of Speech*\")\nthe* *\"*isolated* language\" of the Basques\nhas no affinities with the other languages* of Europe, but with\n\"*the aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent\n*(America) *and those alone.*\"* *Professor Broca\nis also of the same opinion.\n\nPalaeolithic European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was\na pure Atlantean, as we have previously stated. The Basques are,\nof course, of a much later date than this, but their affinities,\nas here shown, go far to prove the original extraction of their\nremote ancestors. The \"mysterious\" affinity between\ntheir tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be\nunderstood by those who have followed our outline of continental\nformations and shiftings.\n\n(4)* Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured\nsymbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior.\n*Berthollet was induced\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* For further facts as to the *isolation *of the Basques\nin Europe and their ethnological relations, cf. Joly, \"*Man\nbefore Metals,*\"* *p. 316. B. Davis is disposed to\nconcede, from an examination of the skulls of the *Guanches\nof the Canary Islands and modern Basques, *that both belong\nto a race proper to *those ancient islands, of which the Canaries\nare the remains!! *This is a step in advance indeed. De Quatrefages\nand Hamy also both assign the Cro-Magnon men of South France and\nthe Guanches to *one type -- *a proposition which involves\na certain corollary which both these writers may not care to father.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 791 FINAL AND IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE.\n\nby such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men\nof Canary Islands and America (Cf. Benjamin, the \"*Atlantic\nIslands,*\" p*. *130.)\n\nThe Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of\nthe Atlanteans. This fact will account for the *great stature\n*evidenced by their old skeletons, as well as by those of their\nEuropean congeners the Cro-Magnon Palaeolithic men.\n\n(5) Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless\nocean along the *Canary Islands *to ask himself the question\nwhen or how that group of volcanic and rocky little islands has\nbeen formed, surrounded on every side by that vast watery space.\nSuch frequent questions led finally to the expedition of the famous\nLeopold von Buch, which took place in the first quarter of the\npresent century. Some geologists maintained that the volcanic\nislands had been raised right from the bottom of the ocean, the\ndepth of which in the immediate vicinity of the island varies\nfrom 6,000 to 18,000 feet. Others were inclined to see in these\ngroups, including Madeira, the Azores, and the islands of Cape\nde Verdes -- the remnants of a gigantic but submerged continent\nwhich had once united Africa with America. The latter men of science\nsupported their hypothesis by a mass of evidence in its favour,\ndrawn from ancient \"myths.\" Hoary \"superstitions,\"\nsuch as the fairy-like Atlantis of Plato, the *Garden of Hesperides,\n*Atlas supporting the world on his shoulders, all of them mythoi\nconnected with the peak of Teneriffe, did not go far with sceptical\nScience. The identity of animal and vegetable species -- showing\neither a previous connection between America and the remaining\ngroups of the islands -- (the hypothesis of their having been\ndrifted from the New to the Old World by the waves was too absurd\nto stand long) -- found more serious consideration. But it is\nonly quite lately, and after Donnelly's book had been published\nseveral years, that the theory has greater chances than ever of\nbecoming an accepted fact. *Fossils found on the Eastern Coast\nof South America have now been proved to belong to the Jurassic\nformations, and are nearly identical with the Jurassic fossils\nof Western Europe and Northern Africa. The geological structure\nof both coasts is also almost identical*;* *the resemblance\nbetween the smaller marine animals dwelling in the more shallow\nwaters of South America, the Western African, and the South European\ncoasts, is also very great. All such facts are bound to bring\nnaturalists to the conclusion that there has been, in distant\npre-historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of\nVenezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands\nand North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of\nFrance.\n\n(6) The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 792 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nAmerica, North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough\nfact in itself, and admits of no explanation, unless the ocean\nis bridged with an Atlantis. But why, also, is there so *marked\na similarity between the fauna* (animal life) *of the --\n*now -- *isolated Atlantic islands? *Why did the specimens\nof *Brazilian fauna *dredged up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson\nresemble those of *Western Europe? *Why does a resemblance\nexist between many of the *West African *and* West Indian\n*animal groups? Again:\n\n\"When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are\ncompared, one *cannot but be struck with their identity*;*\n*all, nearly all belong to the same genera, while many, even\nof the species, are common to both continents . . . indicating\nthat they radiated *from a common centre*\" (*Atlantis*)*,\n*(\"*Westminster Review,*\"* *Jan., 1872).\n\nThe horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least,\na large proportion of the once \"missing links\" connecting\nit with inferior forms have been exhumed from American strata.\n*How did the horse penetrate into Europe and Asia, if no land\ncommunication bridged the oceanic interspaces? *Or if it is\nasserted that the horse originated in the New World, how did such\nforms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance\non the migration hypothesis?\n\nAgain \"Buffon had . . . remarked in the *repetition of\nthe African in the American fauna, *how, for example, the *lama\n*is a juvenescent and feeble *copy of the camel, *and\nhow the *puma *of the New *represented the lion *of\nthe Old World\" (*Schmidt, *\"*Doctrine of Descent\nand Darwinism,*\"* p. *223)*.*\n\n(7) The following quotation runs with No. (2), but its significance\nis such and the writer cited so authoritative, that it deserves\na place to itself: --\n\n\"With regard to the *primitive dolichocephalae of America,\n*I entertain a hypothesis still more bold, namely, that they\nare *nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and\nto the Atlantic populations of Africa, *the Moors, Tuaricks,\nCopts, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidae.\nWe find *one and the same form of skull in the Canary Islands,\nin front of the African coast, and in the Carib islands, on the\nopposite coast which faces Africa. *The colour of the skin\non both sides of the Atlantic is represented in these populations\nas being of a reddish-brown.\" (Professor Retzius, \"Smithsonian\nReport,\" 1859, p. 266.)\n\nIf, then, Basques and Cro-Magnon Cave-Men are of the same race\nas the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also\nallied to the aborigines of America. This is the conclusion which\nthe independent investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages\nnecessitate. The *Atlantean affinities *of these three types\nbecome patent.\n\n(8) The sea-soundings undertaken by **H.M.S**. \"Challenger\"\nand the \"Dolphin,\" have established the fact that a\nhuge elevation some 3,000 *miles in length, *projecting upwards\nfrom the abysmal depths of the\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 793 RECENT SUGGESTIVE DISCOVERIES.\n\nAtlantic, extends from a point near the British Islands southwards,\ncurving round near Cape de Verde, and running in a south-easterly\ndirection along the West African Coast. This elevation averages\nsome* 9,000 feet in height, *and rises above the waves at\nthe Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around\nthe neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a former massive piece\nof land have been discovered (*vide* investigations of United\nStates Ship \"Dolphin\" and others). \"The inequalities,\nthe *mountains and valleys *of its surface *could never\nhave been produced in accordance with any known laws for the deposition\nof sediment, nor by submarine elevation*;* *but, on the\ncontrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the water-level.\"\n*-- *(*Scientific American, *July 28th, 1877). It is\nmost probable that necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis\nto South America, somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon; to\nAfrica near Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with\nSpain is not unlikely, as contended for by Donnelly. (*Vide\n*his chart, \"Atlantis,\" p. 47, Eng. Ed., 1884, though\nhe deals with only a fragment of the *real* continent.) Whether\nthe latter existed or not, is of no consequence, as the fact that\n(what is now) N. W. Africa was -- before the elevation of the\nSahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection -- an extension\nof Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the\nmigration of the European fauna (etc.) took place.\n\nEnough has now been said from the *purely scientific standpoint,\n*and it is needless, in view of the manner in which the subject\nhas now been developed on the lines of *esoteric knowledge,\n*to swell the mass of testimony further. In conclusion, the\nwords of one of the most intuitive writers of the day may be cited\nas admirably illustrative of the opinions of the occultist, who\nawaits in patience the dawn of the coming day: --\n\n\"We are but beginning to understand the past; one hundred\nyears ago the world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing\nof the lingual tie that binds together the Indo-European nations;\nnothing of the significance of the vast volume of inscriptions\nupon the tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of\nthe arrow-headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous\ncivilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and\nPeru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing\nwith giant strides. Who shall say that one hundred years from\nnow, the great museums of the world may not be adorned with gems,\nstatues, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the libraries\nof the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing\nnew light upon all the past history of the human race, and all\nthe great problems which now perplex the thinkers of to-day.\"*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Donnelly, \"*Atlantis*;* the Ante-Diluvian World,*\"*\n*p. 480.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 794 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nAnd now to conclude.\n\n-------\n\nWe have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations,\nwith the doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which\nthese records are the tangible proof; and with many other subjects,\nwhich may, at first sight, seem out of place in this volume.\n\nBut they were necessary in truth. In dealing with the secret annals\nand traditions of so many nations, whose very origins have never\nbeen ascertained on more secure grounds than inferential suppositions,\nin giving out the beliefs and philosophy of more than *prehistoric\n*races, it is not quite as easy to deal with the subject matter\nas it would be if only the philosophy of one special race, and\nits evolution, were concerned. The Secret Doctrine is the common\nproperty of the countless millions of men born under various climates,\nin times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric\nteachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology\nand Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science\nof the Past are lost in the very night of Time; and that, even,\nwhich is historic -- *i.e.,* that which is found scattered\nhither and thither throughout ancient classical literature --\nis, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to lack\nof observation in the ancient writers, or to superstition born\nout of the ignorance of antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible\nto treat this subject as one would the ordinary evolution of an\nart or science in some well-known historical nation. It is only\nby bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending\nto show that in every age, under every condition of civilization\nand knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves\nthe more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its\nfundamental traditions -- that he can be made to see that so many\nstreams of the same water must have had a common source from which\nthey started. What was this source? If coming events are said\nto cast their shadows before, past events cannot fall to leave\ntheir impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the\nhoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen\nof every religion and philosophy, that we can, by checking them\nas we go along, and comparing them, trace out finally the body\nthat produced them. There must be truth and fact in that which\nevery people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of\nits religions and its faith. Moreover, as Haliburton said, \"Hear\none side, and you will be in the dark; hear both sides, and all\nwill be clear.\" The public has hitherto had access to, and\nheard but one side -- or rather the two one-sided views of two\ndiametrically opposed classes of men, whose *prima* *facie\n*propositions or respective premises differ widely, but whose\nfinal conclusions are the same -- Science and Theology. And now\nour\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 795 OLD MASONIC SYMBOLISM.\n\nreaders have an opportunity to hear the other -- the defendants'\n-- justification on and learn the nature of our arguments.\n\nWere the public to be left to its old opinions: namely, on one\nside, that Occultism, Magic, the legends of old, etc., were all\nthe outcome of ignorance and superstition; and on the other, that\neverything outside the orthodox groove was the work of the devil,\nwhat would be the result? In other words, had no theosophical\nand mystic literature obtained a hearing for the few last years,\nthe present work would have had a poor chance of impartial consideration.\nIt would have been proclaimed -- and by many will still be so\nproclaimed -- a fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised\nin, and based on the air; built of soap bubbles, bursting at the\nslightest touch of serious reflection, with *no* foundation,\nas it would be alleged, to stand upon. Even \"the ancient\n*superstitious *and* credulous *classics\" have\nno word of reference to it in clear and unmistakable terms, and\nthe symbols themselves fail to yield a hint at the existence of\nsuch a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But when it becomes\nundeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations\nto a Secret Science and an esoteric history of the world, is based\non fact; that, though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled\nmystery even to the learned, (because they never had the key to\na right understanding of the abundant hints thrown out by the\nancient classics), it is still no fairy tale, but an actuality\n-- then the present work will become but the pioneer of many more\nsuch books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered\nby some great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that\nthey were but the silent witnesses that there do exist mysteries\nbehind the veil which are unreachable without a new key -- is\nborne out by too many proofs to be easily dismissed. An instance\nmay be given as an illustration out of the history of Freemasonry.\n\nIn his \"Franc-maconnerie Occulte,\" rightly or wrongly,\nRagon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, reproaches the\nEnglish Masons with having *materialized *and dishonoured\nMasonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing\nto a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of *Free\nMasonry *and* Free Masons. *The mistake is due, he says,\nto those who connect Masonry *with the building* of Solomon's\nTemple, deriving its origin from it. He derides the idea, and\nsays: . . \"The* Franc Mason *(which is not *macon\nlibre, *or free masonry) knew well when adopting the title,\nthat it was no question of *building a wall,* but that of\n*being initiated into the ancient Mysteries *veiled under\nthe name of* Francmaconnerie *(Freemasonry); that his work\nwas only to be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient\nmysteries, and that he was to become a *mason *after the\nmanner of *Apollo *or Amphion. And do not we know that the\nancient *initiated *poets, when speaking *of the foundation*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 796 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*of a city, *meant thereby the *establishment of a doctrine?\n*Thus *Neptune,* the god of reasoning, and *Apollo,\n*the god of the *hidden *things, presented themselves\nas masons before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him to build\nthe city of Troy -- that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.\"\n(*Maconnerie Orthodoxe, *p. 44.)\n\nSuch *veiled *sentences with double meaning abound in ancient\nclassical writers. Therefore, had an attempt been made to show\nthat, *e.g.,* Laomedon was the founder of a branch of archaic\nmysteries in which the earth-bound material soul (the fourth principle),\nwas personified in Menelaus' faithless wife (the fair Helen),\nif Ragon had not come to corroborate what we asserted, we might\nbe told that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer\nshows Laomedon building a* city, *not an *esoteric worship\n*or **M**YSTERIES! And who are those left now,\nsave a few *Initiates, *who understand the language and correct\nmeaning of such symbolical terms?\n\nBut after having pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing\non our thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to\nbe overcome. Most important among several such obstacles is that\nof chronology. But this could hardly be helped.\n\nWedged in between theological chronology and that of the geologists,\nbacked by all the materialistic Anthropologists who assign dates\nto man and nature which fit in with their own theories alone --\nwhat could the writer do except what is being done? Namely, since\ntheology places the Deluge 2448 **B.C**., and the\nWorld's Creation only 5890 years ago; and since the accurate researches\nby the methods of *exact *Science, have led the geologists\nand physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our Globe between\n10 million and 1,000 million of years* (a *trifling* difference,\nverily!): and the Anthropologists to vary their divergence of\nopinion as to the appearance of man -- between 25,000 and 500,000\nof years -- what can one who studies the Occult doctrine do, but\ncome out and bravely present the esoteric calculations before\nthe world?\n\nBut to do this, corroboration by even a few \"historical\"\nproofs was necessary, though all know the real value of the so-called\n\"historical evidence.\" For, whether man had appeared\non earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years ago, can make no difference\nto profane History, since it begins hardly a couple of thousand\nyears before our era, and since, even then, it grapples hopelessly\nwith the clash and din of contradictory and mutually-destroying\nopinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect the average\nreader has been brought up in for exact science, even that short\n*Past *would remain meaningless, unless the esoteric teachings\nwere corroborated and supported on the spot --\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* *Vide *Sir W. Thomson and Mr. Huxley.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 797 THE PROLOGUE TO ESOTERIC TRUTH.\n\n*whenever possible* -- by* *references to historical\nnames of a so-called *historical *period. This is the only\nguide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted\nto start among the (to him) unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth\ncalled the pre-historic ages. This necessity has been complied\nwith. It is only hoped that the desire to do so, which has led\nthe writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence\nas a corroboration of the Archaic and quite unhistoric Past, will\nnot bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled up without\norder or method the various and widely-separated periods of history\nand tradition. But literary form and method had to be sacrificed\nto the greater clearness of the general exposition.\n\nTo accomplish the proposed task, the writer had to resort to the\nrather unusual means of dividing each volume or Book into three\nParts; the first of which only is the consecutive, though very\nfragmentary, history of the Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man\non this globe. But these two volumes had to serve as a **P**ROLOGUE,\nand prepare the reader's mind for those which shall now follow.\nIn treating of Cosmogony and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind,\nit was necessary to show that no religion, since the very earliest,\nhas ever been entirely based on fiction, as none was the object\nof special revelation; and that it is dogma alone which has ever\nbeen killing primeval truth. Finally, that no human-born doctrine,\nno creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare\nin sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that\nunlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost\nsanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only: and that bosom\nis in the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century\nEmanuel Swedenborg. There lies the heart of nature, that shrine\nwhence issued the early races of primeval Humanity, and which\nis the cradle of *physical *man.\n\nThus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and\ntenets of the archaic, earliest Races contained in their hitherto\nsecret Scriptural records. But our explanations are by no means\ncomplete, nor do they pretend to give out the full text, or to\nhave been read by the help of more than three or four keys out\nof the sevenfold bunch of esoteric interpretation, and even this\nhas only been partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic\nfor any one person to undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main\nconcern was simply to prepare the soil. This, we trust we have\ndone. These two volumes only constitute the work of a pioneer\nwho has forced his way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle\nof the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement\nhas been made to fell and uproot the deadly upas trees of superstition,\nprejudice, and conceited ignorance, so that these two\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 798 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nvolumes should form for the student a fitting prelude for Volumes\n**III**. and **IV**. Until the rubbish\nof the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists\nto whom these volumes are dedicated, it is impossible that the\nmore practical teaching contained in the Third Volume should be\nunderstood. Consequently, it entirely depends upon the reception\nwith which Volumes **I.** and **II**.\nwill meet at the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether these\nlast two volumes will ever be published, though they are *almost\n*completed.\n\n*Satyat Nasti paro dharmah.*\n\nTHERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.\n\nEnd of Vol. **II**.\n\nContents of Volume 2\n\nContents of Volume 1\n\nHomepage",
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