Theosophical Society,
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
H P Blavatsky
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PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE
AND
DIVINE THOUGHT
"As
it would seem irrational to affirm that we already know all existing causes,
permission must be given to assume, if need be, an entirely new agent.
"Assuming,
what is not strictly accurate as yet, that the undulatory
hypothesis accounts for all the facts, we are called on to decide whether the
existence of an undulating Ether is thereby proved. We
cannot positively affirm that no other supposition will explain the facts.
Ether,
this hypothetical Proteus, one of the "representative Fictions" of
modern Science -- which, nevertheless, was so long accepted -- is one of the
lower "principles" of what we call PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE (Akasa, in
Sanskrit), one of the dreams of old, and which has now become again the dream
of modern science. It is the greatest, just as it is the boldest, of the
surviving speculations of ancient philosophers. For the Occultists, however,
both ETHER and the Primordial Substance are a reality. To put it plainly, ETHER
is the Astral Light, and the Primordial Substance is AKASA, the Upadhi of DIVINE THOUGHT.
In
modern language, the latter would be better named COSMIC IDEATION -- Spirit;
the former, COSMIC SUBSTANCE, Matter. These, the Alpha and the Omega of Being,
are but the two facets of the one Absolute Existence. The latter was never
addressed, or even mentioned, by any name in antiquity, except allegorically.
In the oldest Aryan race, the Hindu, the worship of the intellectual classes
never consisted (as with the Greeks) in a fervent adoration of marvellous form and art, which led later on to
anthropomorphism. But while the Greek philosopher adored form, and the Hindu
sage alone "perceived the true relation of earthly beauty and eternal
truth" -- the uneducated of every nation understood neither, at any time.
They
do not understand it even now. The evolution of the GOD-IDEA proceeds apace
with man's own intellectual evolution. So true it is that the noblest ideal to which the religious Spirit of one age can soar,
will appear but a gross caricature to the philosophic mind in a succeeding
epoch! The philosophers themselves had to be initiated into perceptive mysteries,
before they could grasp the correct idea of the ancients in relation to this
most metaphysical subject. Otherwise -- outside such initiation -- for every
thinker there will be a "Thus far shalt thou go
and no farther," mapped out by his intellectual capacity, as clearly and
as unmistakeably as there is for the progress of any
nation or race in its cycle by the law of Karma. Outside of initiation, the
ideals of contemporary religious thought must always have their wings clipped
and remain unable to soar higher; for idealistic as well as realistic thinkers,
and even free-thinkers, are but the outcome and the natural product of their
respective environments and periods. The ideals of both are only
DIVINE THOUGHT, OR CINERITIOUS MATTER.
the necessary results of their temperaments, and
the outcome of that phase of intellectual progress to which a nation, in its
collectivity, has attained. Hence, as already remarked, the highest flights of
modern (Western) metaphysics have fallen far short of the truth. Much of
current Agnostic speculation on the existence of the "First Cause" is
little better than veiled materialism -- the terminology alone being different.
Even so great a thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer speaks of the
"Unknowable" occasionally in terms that demonstrate the lethal
influence of materialistic thought, which, like the deadly Sirocco, has
withered and blighted all current ontological speculation.*
From
the early ages of the Fourth Race, when Spirit alone was worshipped and the
mystery was made manifest, down to the last palmy
days of Grecian art at the dawn of Christianity -- the Hellenes alone had dared
to raise publicly an altar to the UNKNOWN GOD. Whatever St. Paul may have had
in his profound mind when declaring to the Athenians that this
"unknown," ignorantly worshipped by them, was the true God announced
by himself -- that Deity was not "Jehovah" (see "The Holy of
Holies"), nor was he "The Maker of the world and all things."
For it is not the "God of Israel" but the "Unknown" of the
ancient and modern Pantheist that "dwelleth not
in temples made with hands" (Acts xviii., 23-4).
Divine
thought cannot be defined, or its meaning explained, except by the numberless
manifestations of Cosmic Substance in which the former is sensed spiritually by
those who can do so. To say this, after having defined it as the Unknown Deity,
abstract, impersonal, sexless, which must be placed at the root of every Cosmogony
and its subsequent evolution, is equivalent to saying nothing at all. It is
like attempting a transcendental equation of conditions for the true values of
a set, having in hand for deducing them only a number of unknown quantities.
Its place is found in the old primitive Symbolic charts, in which, as shown in
the text, it is represented by a boundless darkness, on the ground of which
appears the first central point in white -- thus symbolising
coeval and co-eternal SPIRIT-MATTER making its appearance in the phenomenal
world, before its first differentiation. When "the one becomes two,"
it may then be
NOTE
* For instance, when he
terms the "First Cause" -- the UNKNOWABLE -- a "power
manifesting through phenomena," and "an infinite eternal Energy"
(?) it is clear that he has grasped solely the physical aspect of the mystery
of Being -- the Energies of Cosmic Substance only. The co-eternal aspect of the
ONE REALITY -- Cosmic Ideation -- (as to its noumenon,
it seems non-existent in the mind of the great thinker) is absolutely omitted
from consideration. Without doubt, this one-sided mode of dealing with the
problem is due largely to the pernicious Western practice of subordinating
consciousness, or regarding it as a "by-product" of molecular motion.
referred to as Spirit and matter. To
"Spirit" is referable every manifestation of consciousness,
reflective or direct, and of unconscious purposiveness
(to adopt a modern expression used in Western philosophy, so-called) as
evidenced in the Vital Principle, and Nature's submission to the majestic
sequence of immutable law. "Matter" must be regarded as objectivity
in its purest abstraction -- the self-existing basis whose septenary
manvantaric differentiations constitute the objective
reality underlying the phenomena of each phase of conscious existence. During
the period of Universal Pralaya, Cosmic Ideation is
nonexistent; and the variously differentiated states of Cosmic Substance are
resolved back again into the primary state of abstract potential objectivity.
Manvantaric impulse commences with the re-awakening
of Cosmic Ideation (the "Universal Mind") concurrently with, and
parallel to the primary emergence of Cosmic Substance -- the latter being the manvantaric vehicle of the former -- from its
undifferentiated pralayic state. Then, absolute
wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process,
superior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic
Energy (Fohat). Thrilling through the bosom of inert
Substance, Fohat impels it to activity, and guides
its primary differentiations on all the Seven planes
of Cosmic Consciousness. There are thus Seven Protyles
(as they are now called), while Aryan antiquity called them the Seven Prakriti, or Natures, serving, severally, as the relatively
homogeneous basis, which in the course of the increasing heterogeneity (in the
evolution of the Universe) differentiate into the marvellous
complexity presented by phenomena on the planes of perception. The term
"relatively" is used designedly, because the very existence of such a
process, resulting in the primary segregations of undifferentiated Cosmic
Substance into its septenary bases of evolution,
compels us to regard the protyle* of each plane as
only a mediate phase assumed by Substance in its passage from abstract, into
full objectivity.
Cosmic
Ideation is said to be non-existent during Pralayic
periods, for the simple reason that there is no one, and nothing, to perceive
its effects. There can be no manifestation of Consciousness,
semi-consciousness, or even "unconscious purposiveness,"
except through the
NOTE
* The term Protyle is due to Mr. Crookes,
the eminent chemist, who has given that name to pre-Matter, if one may so call
primordial and purely homogeneous substances, suspected, if not actually yet
found, by Science in the ultimate composition of the atom. But the incipient
segregation of primordial matter into atoms and molecules takes its rise
subsequent to the evolution of the Seven Protyles. It
is the last of these -- having recently detected the possibility of its
existence on our plane -- that Mr. Crookes
is in search of.
THE UNIVERSAL ILLUSION
vehicle
of matter; that is to say, on this our plane, wherein human consciousness in
its normal state cannot soar beyond what is known as transcendental
metaphysics, it is only through some molecular aggregation or fabric that
Spirit wells up in a stream of individual or sub-conscious subjectivity. And as
Matter existing apart from perception is a mere abstraction, both of these
aspects of the ABSOLUTE -- Cosmic Substance and Cosmic Ideation -- are mutually
inter-dependent. In strict accuracy -- to avoid confusion and misconception --
the term "Matter" ought to be applied to the aggregate of objects of
possible perception, and "Substance" to noumena;
for inasmuch as the phenomena of our plane are the creation of the perceiving
Ego -- the modifications of its own subjectivity -- all the "states of
matter representing the aggregate of perceived objects" can have but a
relative and purely phenomenal existence for the children of our plane. As the
modern Idealists would say, the co-operation of
Subject and Object results in the Sense-object or phenomenon. But this does not
necessarily lead to the conclusion that it is the same on all other planes;
that the co-operation of the two on the planes of their septenary
differentiation results in a septenary aggregate of
phenomena which are likewise non-existent per se, though concrete realities for
the Entities of whose experience they form a part, in the same manner as the
rocks and rivers around us are real from the stand-point of a physicist, though
unreal illusions of sense from that of the metaphysician. It would be an error
to say, or even conceive such a thing. From the stand-point of the highest
metaphysics, the whole Universe, gods included, is an illusion; but the
illusion of him who is in himself an illusion differs on every plane of
consciousness; and we have no more right to dogmatise
about the possible nature of the perceptive faculties of an Ego on, say, the
sixth plane, than we have to identify our perceptions with, or make them a
standard for, those of an ant, in its mode of consciousness. The pure object
apart from consciousness* is unknown to us, while living on the plane of our
three-dimensional World; as we know only the mental states it excites in the
perceiving Ego. And, so long as the contrast of Subject and Object endures --
to wit, as long as we enjoy our five senses and no more, and do not know how to
divorce our all-perceiving Ego (the Higher Self) from the thraldom
of these senses -- so long will it be impossible for the personal Ego to break
through the barrier which separates it from a
NOTE
* Cosmic Ideation focussed in a principle or upadhi
(basis) results as the consciousness of the individual Ego. Its manifestation
varies with the degree of upadhi, e.g., through that
known as Manas it wells up as Mind-Consciousness;
through the more finely differentiated fabric (sixth state of matter) of the Buddhi resting on the experience of Manas
as its basis -- as a stream of spiritual INTUITION.
knowledge of things in themselves (or Substance).
That Ego, progressing in an arc of ascending subjectivity, must exhaust the
experience of every plane. But not till the Unit is merged in the ALL, whether
on this or any other plane, and Subject and Object alike vanish in the absolute
negation of the Nirvanic State (negation, again, only
from our plane), is scaled that peak of Omniscience -- the Knowledge of
things-in-themselves; and the solution of the yet more awful riddle approached,
before which even the highest Dhyan Chohan must bow
in silence and ignorance -- the unspeakable mystery of that which is called by
the Vedantins, the PARABRAHMAM.
Therefore,
such being the case, all those who sought to give a name to the incognizable Principle have simply degraded it. Even to
speak of Cosmic Ideation -- save in its phenomenal aspect -- is like trying to
bottle up primordial Chaos, or to put a printed label on ETERNITY.
What,
then, is the "primordial Substance," that mysterious object of which
Alchemy was ever talking, and which became the subject of philosophical
speculation in every age? What can it be finally, even in its phenomenal
pre-differentiation? Even that is ALL in manifested Nature and -- nothing to
our senses. It is mentioned under various names in every Cosmogony, referred to
in every philosophy, and shown to be, to this day, the ever grasp-eluding
PROTEUS in Nature. We touch and do not feel it; we look at it without seeing
it; we breathe it and do not perceive it; we hear and smell it without the
smallest cognition that it is there; for it is in every molecule of that which
in our illusion and ignorance we regard as Matter in any of its states, or
conceive as a feeling, a thought, an emotion. . . . In short, it is the "upadhi," or vehicle, of every possible phenomenon,
whether physical, mental, or psychic. In the opening sentences of Genesis, as
in the Chaldean Cosmogony; in the Puranas
of India, and in the Book of the Dead of Egypt, it opens everywhere the cycle
of manifestation. It is termed "Chaos," and the face of the waters,
incubated by the Spirit proceeding from the Unknown, under whatever name. (See
"Chaos, Theos, Kosmos.")
The
authors of the sacred Scriptures in India go deeper into the origin of things
evolved than Thales or Job, for they say:--
"From
INTELLIGENCE (called MAHAT in the Puranas) associated
with IGNORANCE (Iswar, as a personal deity) attended
by its projective power, in which the quality of dulness
(tamas, insensibility) predominates, proceeds Ether
-- from ether, air; from air, heat; from heat, water; and from water, earth
"with everything on it." "From THIS, from this same SELF, was
the Ether produced," says the Veda. (Taittiriya
Upanishad II. 1).
It
becomes thus evident that it is not this Ether -- sprung at the fourth
ETHER, AS ITS NOUMENON.
remove from an Emanation of Intelligence
"associated with Ignorance" -- which is the high principle, the
deific Entity worshipped by the Greeks and Latins
under the name of "Pater omnipotens
AEther," and "Magnus AEther"
in its collective aggregates. The septenary
gradation, and the innumerable subdivisions and differences, made by the
ancients between the powers of Ether collectively, from its outward fringe of
effects, with which our Science is so familiar, up to the "Imponderable
Substance," once admitted as the "Ether of Space," now about to
be rejected, has been ever a vexing riddle for every branch of knowledge. The
mythologists and symbologists of our day, confused by
this incomprehensible glorification, on the one hand, and degradation on the
other, of the same deified entity and in the same religious systems, are often
driven to the most ludicrous mistakes. The Church, firm as a rock in each and
all of her early errors of interpretation, has made of Ether the abode of her
Satanic legions.* The whole hierarchy of the "Fallen" angels is
there; the Cosmocratores -- or the "world
bearers," (according to Bossuet); Mundi Tenentes -- the "world
holders," as Tertullian calls them; and Mundi Domini "world
dominations," or rather dominators, the Curbati,
or "Curved," etc., who thus make of the stars and celestial orbs in
their course -- Devils!
The
difference made between the seven states of Ether (itself one of the Seven
Cosmic principles), while the AEther of the Ancients
is universal Fire, may be seen in the injunctions by Zoroaster and Psellus, respectively. The former said: "Consult it
only when it is without form or figure," absque
forma et figura, which means
without flames or burning coals. "When it has a form -- heed it not,"
teaches Psellus; "but when it is formless, obey
it, for it is then sacred fire, and all it will reveal thee, shall be
true."** This proves that Ether, itself an aspect of Akasa, has in its
turn several aspects or "principles."
All
the ancient nations deified AEther in its
imponderable aspect and potency. Virgil calls Jupiter, Pater
omnipotens AEther, "the
great AEther."*** The Hindus have also placed it
among their deities; under the name of Akasa (the synthesis of AEther). And the author of the Homoiomerian
NOTE
* For it is thus that
the Church has interpreted verse 12 in the VI. Chapter to the
Ephesians. "For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world." Further on
** Effatum
XVI. "Oracles of Zoroaster."
*** Georgica. Book II.
System
of philosophy, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, firmly
believed that the spiritual prototypes of all things, as well as their
elements, were to be found in the boundless Ether where they were generated,
whence they evolved, and whither they returned -- an Occult teaching.
It
thus becomes clear that it is from Ether in its highest synthetic aspect, once anthropomorphised, that sprung the first idea of a personal creative deity.
With the philosophical Hindus the elements are Tamas,
i.e., "unenlightened by intellect, which they obscure."
We
have now to exhaust the question of the mystical meaning of "Primordial
Chaos" and of the Root-Principle, and show how they were connected in the
ancient philosophies with Akasa, wrongly translated AEther,
and also with Maya (illusion) -- of which Ishwara is
the male aspect. We shall speak further on of the intelligent
"principle," or rather of the invisible immaterial properties, in the
visible and material elements, that "sprung from the primordial
Chaos."
For,
"What is the primordial Chaos but AEther?"
it is asked in "
It
will be an easy task to show that the cosmogonical
legends all over the world are based on a knowledge by the ancients of those
sciences, which have allied themselves in our days in support of the doctrine
of evolution; and that further research may demonstrate that those ancients
were far better acquainted with the fact of evolution itself, embracing both
its physical and spiritual aspects, than we are now. "With the old
philosophers, evolution was a universal theorem, a doctrine embracing the
whole, and an established principle; while our modern evolutionists are enabled
to present us merely with speculative theoretics;
with particular, if not wholly negative theorems. It is idle for the
representatives of our modern wisdom to close the debate and pretend that the
question is settled, merely because the obscure phraseology of the Mosaic, far
later, account clashes with the definite exegesis of
'Exact Science'" ("Isis Unveiled").
WHAT MANU SAYS OF THIS.
If
one turns to the "Laws (or Ordinances) of Manu," one finds the
prototype of all these ideas. Mostly lost (to the Western world) in their
original form, disfigured by later interpolations and additions, they have,
nevertheless, preserved quite enough of their ancient Spirit to show its
character. "Removing the darkness, the Self-existent Lord" (Vishnu, Narayana, etc.) becoming manifest, and "wishing to
produce beings from his Essence, created, in the beginning, water alone. In
that he cast seed. . . . . That became a golden Egg." (V.
6, 7, 8, 9.) Whence this Self-existent Lord? It is called THIS, and is
spoken of as "Darkness, imperceptible, without definite qualities,
undiscoverable as if wholly in sleep." (V. 5.)
Having dwelt in that Egg for a whole divine year, he "who is called in the
world Brahma," splits that Egg in two, and from the upper portion he forms
the heaven, from the lower the earth, and from the middle the sky and "the
perpetual place of waters." (12, 13.)
But
there is, directly following these verses, something more important for us, as
it corroborates entirely our esoteric teachings. From verse 14 to 36, evolution
is given in the order described in the Esoteric
philosophy. This cannot be easily gainsaid. Even Medhatithi,
the son of Viraswamin, and the author of the
Commentary, "the Manubhasya," whose date,
according to the western Orientalists, is 1,000 A.D.,
helps us with his remarks to the elucidation of the truth. He showed himself
either unwilling to give out more, because he knew that truth which has to be
kept from the profane, or else he was really puzzled. Still, what he does give
out makes the septenary principle in men and nature
plain enough.
Let
us begin with Chapter 1. of the "Ordinances"
or "Laws" after the Self-existent Lord, the unmanifesting
Logos of the Unknown "Darkness," becomes manifested in the golden
Egg. It is from this "Egg," from ----
(11.)
That which is the undiscrete (undifferentiated)
cause, eternal, which Is and Is not, from It issued that male who is called in
the world Brahma. . . . .
Here
we find, as in all genuine philosophical systems, even the "Egg" or
the Circle (or Zero), boundless Infinity, referred to as IT,* and Brahma, the
first unit only, referred to as the male god, i.e., the fructifying Principle.
It is [[diagram]] or 10 (ten) the Decade. On the plane of the Septenary or our World only, it is called Brahma. On that
of the Unified Decade in the realm of Reality, this male Brahma is an illusion.
(14.)
"From Self (atmanah) he
created mind, (1) which is and is not;
NOTE
* The ideal apex of the
Pythagorean triangle: vide Sections in Vol. II., "Cross and Circle,"
and the "Earliest Symbolics of the Cross."
(2)
and from mind, Ego-ism (Self-Consciousness) the ruler;
(3) the Lord."
(1.)
The mind is Manas. Medhatithi,
the commentator, justly observes here that it is the reverse of this and shows
already interpolation and rearranging; for it is Manas
that springs from Ahamkara or (Universal)
Self-Consciousness, as Manas in the microcosm springs
from Mahat, or Maha-Buddhi (Buddhi, in man). For Manas is
dual, and as shown and translated by Colebrooke,
"is serving both for sense and action, is an organ by affinity, being
cognate with the rest." "The rest" means, here, that Manas, our fifth principle (the fifth, because the body was
named the first, which is the reverse of the true philosophical order)* is in
affinity both with Atma-Buddhi and with the lower
four principles. Hence, our teaching: namely, that Manas
follows Atma-Buddhi to Devachan, and that the lower
(dregs, the residue of) Manas remains with
(2.)
Such is the meaning of Manas, which "is, and is
not."
(3.)
Medhatithi translates it as "the one conscious
of the I," or Ego, not "ruler," as the Orientalists do. Thus they translate verse 16: "He
also, having made the subtile parts of those six (the
Great Self and the five organs of sense) of unmeasured brightness, to enter
into the elements of Self (Atmamatrasu) created all
beings."
When,
according to Medhatithi, it ought to read matra-Chit instead of "Atmamatrasu,"
and thus be made to say:--
"He
having pervaded the subtile parts of those six, of
unmeasured brightness, by elements of self, created all beings."
This
latter reading must be the correct one, since he, the Self, is what we call Atma, and thus constitutes the seventh principle, the
synthesis of the "six." Such is also the opinion of the editor of Manava-dharma Shastra, who seems
to have intuitionally entered far deeper into the spirit of the philosophy than
has the translator of the "Ordinances of Manu," the late Dr. Burnell. For he hesitates little between
the text of Kulluka and the Commentaries of Medhatithi. Rejecting the tanmatra,
or subtile elements, and the atmamatrasu
of Kulluka, he says, applying the principles to the
Cosmic Self: "The six appear rather to be the manas
plus the five principles of Ether, air, fire, water, earth"; "having
united five portions of these six with the spiritual element (the seventh) he
(thus) created all existing things;" atmamatra
is therefore the spiritual atom as opposed to the elementary, not reflective
"elements of himself." Thus he corrects the translation of verse --
"17. As the subtile elements of bodily forms of
This One depend on these six, so
NOTE
* Vide A. Coke Burnell's translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph.D.
THE SEVEN PRAKRITIS.
the wise call his form carira"
(sharira) -- and he says that "Elements"
mean here portions or parts (or principles), which reading is borne out by
verse 19, which says:--
"19. This non-eternal (Universe) arises
then from the Eternal, by means of the subtile
elements of forms of those seven very glorious principles" (purusha).
Commenting
upon which, according to Medhatithi, the Editor
remarks that "the five elements plus mind (Manas)
and Self-Consciousness (Ahamkara)* are meant;"
"subtile elements," as before (meaning)
"five portions of form" (or principles). For verse 20 shows it, when
saying of these (five elements, or "five portions of form" (rupa, plus Manas and
Self-Consciousness) that they constitute the "seven purusha,"
or principles, called in the Puranas the "Seven Prakritis."
Moreover,
these "five elements" or "five portions" are spoken of in
verse 27 as "those which are called the atomic destructible portions"
-- therefore "distinct from the atoms of the nyaya."
This
creative Brahma, issuing from the mundane or golden egg, unites in himself both
the male and the female principles. He is, in short, the same as all the
creative Protologoi. Of Brahma, however, it could not
be said, as of Dionysos: "[[protogonon
diphue trigonon Baccheion Hanakta Hagrion arreton kruphion dikerota dimorphon]]" -- a lunar Jehovah -- Bacchus truly, with
David dancing nude before his symbol in the ark -- because no licentious Dionysia were ever established in his name and honour. All
such public worship was exoteric, and the great universal symbols were
distorted universally, as those of Krishna are now by the Vallabacharyas
of Bombay, the followers of the infant god. But are these popular gods the true
Deity? Are they the Apex and synthesis of the sevenfold creation, man included?
Never! Each and all are one of the rungs of that septenary
ladder of Divine Consciousness, pagan as Christian. For Ain-Soph
also is said to manifest through the Seven Letters of Jehovah's name who, having usurped the place of the Unknown Limitless, was
given by his devotees his Seven Angels of the Presence -- his Seven Principles.
Yet they are mentioned in almost every school. In the pure Sankhya
philosophy mahat, ahamkara
and the five tanmatras are called the seven Prakritis (or Natures), and they are counted from Maha-Buddhi or Mahat down to
Earth. (See Sankhya Karika III. and Commentaries.)
Nevertheless,
however disfigured for Rabbinical purposes is the original Elohistic
version by Ezra, however repulsive at times even the
NOTE
* Ahamkara,
as universal Self-Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as also Manas. For this conception of "I," or one's Ego,
is either sattwa, "pure quietude," or
appears as rajas, "active," or remains tamas,
"stagnant," in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes
the properties of either.
esoteric
meaning in the Hebrew scrolls, which is far more so than its outward veil or
cloaking may be* -- once the Jehovistic portions are
eliminated, the Mosaic books are found full of purely occult and priceless
knowledge, especially in the first six chapters.
Read
by the aid of the Kabala one finds a matchless temple of occult truths, a well
of deeply concealed beauty hidden under a structure, the visible architecture
of which, its apparent symmetry notwithstanding, is unable to stand the
criticism of cold reason, or to reveal its age, for it belongs to all the ages.
There is more wisdom concealed under the exoteric fables of Puranas
and Bible than in all the exoteric facts and science in the literature of the
world, and more OCCULT true Science, than there is of exact knowledge in all
the academies. Or, in plainer and stronger language, there is as much esoteric
wisdom in some portions of the exoteric Puranas and
Pentateuch, as there is of nonsense and of designed childish fancy in it, when
read only in the dead-letter murderous interpretations of great dogmatic
religions, and especially of sects.
Let
anyone read the first verses of chapter i. of Genesis
and reflect upon them. There "God" commands to another
"god," who does his bidding -- even in the cautious English
Protestant translation of James the First's authorised
edition.
In
the "beginning," the Hebrew language having no word to express the
idea of Eternity,** "God" fashions the heaven and the Earth; and the
latter is "without form and void," while the former is no Heaven in
fact, but the "Deep," Chaos, with darkness upon its face.***
"And
the Spirit of GOD moved upon the face of the Waters" (v. 2), or the great
Deep of the Infinite Space. And this Spirit is Nara-yana,
or Vishnu.
NOTE
* See "The Holy of
Holies."
** The word
"eternity," by which Christian theologians interpret the term
"for ever and ever," does not exist in the Hebrew tongue -- either as
a word or meaning. Oulam, says Le Clerc,
only imports a time when beginning or end is not known. It does not mean
"infinite duration," and the word for ever in the Old Testament, only
signifies a "long time." Nor is the term
"eternity" used in the Christian sense in the Puranas.
For in Vishnu Purana, it is clearly stated that by
Eternity and Immortality only "existence to the end of the Kalpa" is
meant (Book II. chap. viii.).
*** Orphic theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its Spirit. The
successive transformations it has undergone, have now
separated it widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by
comparing it even with Hesiod's theogony.
Yet the truly Aryan Hindu spirit breaks forth everywhere in both Hesiod's and the Orphic theogony.
(See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter,
Cosmogonies Aryennes, in his Essais
Orientaux.) Thus the original Greek conception of
Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In Hesiod,
therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless
in duration, an abstraction at the same time as a visible presence. SPACE
filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its precosmic
state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space,
according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity in
our philosophy.
DARKNESS, IS LIGHT
"And
God said, Let there be a firmament. . ." (v. 6), and "God," the
second, obeyed and "made the firmament" (v. 7). "And God said
let there be light," and "there was light." Now the latter does
not mean light at all, but in the Kabala, the androgyne
"Adam Kadmon," or Sephira (Spiritual
light), for they are one; or, according to the Chaldean
"Book of Numbers," the secondary angels, the first being the Elohim who are the aggregate of that "fashioning"
god. For to whom are those words of command addressed? And who is it who
commands? That which commands is the eternal Law, and he who obeys,
the Elohim, the known quantity acting in and with x, or
the coefficient of the unknown quantity, the Forces of the ONE Force. All this
is Occultism, and is found in the archaic STANZAS. It is perfectly immaterial
whether we call these "Forces" the Dhyan Chohans, or the Ophanim, as
"The
one Universal Light, which to Man is Darkness, is ever existent," says the
Chaldean "Book of Numbers." From it proceeds periodically the ENERGY, which is reflected in the
"Deep" or Chaos, the store-house of future worlds, and, once
awakened, stirs up and fructifies the latent Forces, which are the ever present
eternal potentialities in it. Then awake anew the Brahmas and Buddhas -- the
co-eternal Forces -- and a new Universe springs into being. . . . .
In
the Sepher Jezireh, the
Kabalistic Book of Creation, the author has evidently repeated the words of
Manu. In it, the Divine Substance is represented as having alone existed from
the eternity, boundless and absolute; and as having emitted from itself the
Spirit.* "One is the Spirit of the living God, blessed be ITS name, which liveth for ever! Voice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy
Spirit;"** and this is the Kabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously
anthropomorphised by the Christian Fathers. From this
triple ONE emanated the whole Kosmos. First from ONE emanated number TWO, or
Air (the Father), the creative element; and then number THREE, Water (the
Mother), proceeded from the air; Ether or Fire completes the mystic four, the Arba-il.*** "When the Concealed of the Concealed
wanted to reveal Himself, he first made a point (primordial point, or the first
Sephiroth, air, or Holy Ghost), shaped into a sacred
form (the ten Sephiroth, or the Heavenly man), and
covered it with a rich and splendid garment, that is the world."****
NOTE
* The manifested Spirit;
Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with absolute Divine Substance: Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti are
one in essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance in their primal
character are one also.
** "Sepher Jezireh," chap. 1, Mishna ix.
*** Ibid. It is from Arba that Abram is made to come.
**** "Zohar,"
"He
maketh the wind His messengers, flaming Fire His
servants," says the Jezireh, showing the cosmical character of the later euhemerised
Elements,* and that the Spirit permeates every atom in Kosmos.
This
"primordial Substance" is called by some Chaos: Plato and the Pythagoreans
named it the Soul of the World after it had been impregnated by the Spirit of
that which broods over the Primeval Waters, or Chaos. It is by being reflected
in it, say the Kabalists, that the brooding Principle
created the phantasmagoria of a visible, manifested Universe. Chaos, before --
Ether, after, the "reflection;" it is still the deity that pervades
all Space and things. It is the invisible, imponderable Spirit of things and
the invisible, but too tangible fluid that radiates from the fingers of the
healthy magnetizer, for it is Vital Electricity -- LIFE itself. Called in
derision by the Marquis de Mirville "the
nebulous Almighty," it is termed by the Theurgists and Occultists to this
day "the living Fire"; and there is not a Hindu who practises at dawn a certain kind of meditation but knows
its effects.** It is the "Spirit of
NOTE
* "Sepher Jezireh," Mishna ix., 10. Everywhere
throughout the Acts, Paul calls the invisible Kosmic
Beings the "Elements." (See Greek Texts.)
But now the Elements are degraded into and limited to atoms of which nothing is
known, so far, and which are only "children of necessity" as Ether is
too -- as we said in "ISIS." "The poor primordial elements have
long been exiled, and our ambitious physicists run races to determine who shall
add one more to the fledgling brood of the sixty and odd elementary
substances." Meanwhile there rages a war in modern chemistry about terms.
We are denied the right to call these substances "chemical elements,"
for they are not "primordial principles of self-existing essences out of
which the universe was fashioned," according to Plato. Such ideas
associated with the word element were good enough for the "old Greek
philosophy," but modern science rejects them; for, as Professor Crookes says, "they are unfortunate terms," and
experimental science will have "nothing to do with any kind of essences
except those which it can see, smell, or taste. It leaves others to the
metaphysicians. . . ." We must feel grateful even for so much.
** Writing upon this
subject in Isis Unveiled we said of it that it was: "The Chaos of the
ancients, the Zoroastrian sacred fire, or the Atash-Behram
of the Parsees; the Hermes-fire, the Elmes-fire of
the ancient Germans; the lightning of Cybele; the
burning torch of Apollo; the flame on the altar of Pan; the inextinguishable
fire in the temple on the Acropolis, and in that of Vesta;
the fire-flame of Pluto's helm; the brilliant sparks on the hats of the Dioscuri, on the Gorgon head, the helm of Pallas, and the
staff of Mercury; the Egyptian Phtha-Ra; the Grecian
Zeus Cataibates (the descending) of Pausanias; the pentacostal
fire-tongues; the burning bush of Moses; the pillar of fire of the Exodus, and
the "burning lamp" of Abram, the eternal fire of the "bottomless
pit"; the Delphic oracular vapours; the Sidereal
light of the Rosicrucians; the AKASA of the Hindu
adepts; the Astral Light of Eliphas Levi; the
nerve-aura and the fluid of the magnetists; the od of the Reichenbach; the Psychod and ectenic force of Thury; the psychic force of Sergeant Cox, and the
atmospheric magnetism of some naturalists; galvanism; and finally, electricity
-- all these are but various names for many different manifestations or effects
of the same mysterious, all-pervading cause, the Greek Archeus."
We now add -- it is all this and much more.
THE MYSTIC FIRE
Light" and Magnes. As truly expressed by
an opponent, Magus and magnes are two branches
growing from the same trunk and shooting forth the same resultants. And in this
appellation of "living fire" we may also discover the meaning of the
puzzling sentence in the Zend-Avesta saying that there is "a fire that
gives knowledge of the future. Science and amiable speech," i.e., develops
an extraordinary eloquence in the sybil,
the sensitive, and even some orators.
This
"fire" is spoken of in all the Hindu Books, as also in the Kabalistic
works. The Zohar explains it as the "white
hidden fire, in the Resha trivrah"
(the White Head), whose Will causes the fiery fluid to
flow in 370 currents in every direction of the universe. It is identical with
the "Serpent that runs with 370 leaps" of the Siphrah
Dzenioota, which, when the "Perfect Man,"
the Metatron, is raised, i.e., when the divine man
indwells in the animal man, it, the Serpent, becomes three spirits, that is to
say, is Atma-Buddhi-Manas, in our theosophical
phraseology. (Vide Part II. in Vol. II., §§ 3, "The Many Meanings of the
War in Heaven.")
Spirit,
then, or Cosmic Ideation, and Cosmic Substance -- one of whose principles is Ether -- are one, and include the ELEMENTS, in
the sense
These
"higher intelligences" are the Dhyan Chohans of the Occultists.
Indeed,
there are few Myths in any religious system worthy of the name, but have an
historical as well as a scientific foundation. "Myths," justly
observes Pococke, "are now proved to be fables,
just in proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as they were
once understood."
The
one prevailing, most distinct idea -- found in all ancient teaching, with
reference to Cosmic Evolution and the first "creation" of our Globe with
all its products, organic and inorganic (strange word for an Occultist to use)
-- is that the whole Kosmos has sprung from the DIVINE THOUGHT. This thought
impregnates matter, which is co-eternal with the ONE REALITY; and all that
lives and breathes evolves from the emanations of the ONE Immutable -- Parabrahm = Mulaprakriti, the
eternal one-root. The former of these is, so to say, the aspect of the central
point turned inward into regions quite inaccessible to human intellect, and is
absolute abstraction; whereas, in its aspect as Mulaprakriti
-- the eternal root of all, -- it gives one some hazy comprehension at least of
the Mystery of Being.
"Therefore,
it was taught in the inner temples that this visible universe of spirit and
matter is but the concrete image of the ideal abstraction; it was built on the
model of the first DIVINE IDEA. Thus our universe existed from Eternity in a
latent state. The soul animating this purely spiritual universe is the central
sun, the highest deity itself. It was not the One who built the concrete form
of the idea, but the first-begotten; and as it was constructed on the
geometrical figure of the dodecahedron,* the first-begotten 'was pleased to
employ twelve thousand years in its creation.' The latter number is expressed
in the Tyrrhenian cosmogony,** which shows man created
in the sixth millennium. This agrees with the Egyptian theory of 6,000
'years'*** and with the Hebrew computation. But it is the exoteric form of it.
The secret computation explains that the 'twelve thousand and the 6,000 years'
are YEARS OF BRAHMA -- one day of Brahma being equal to 4,320,000,000 years. Sanchoniathon**** in his Cosmogony, declares that when the
wind (spirit) became enamoured of its own principles
(the chaos), an intimate union took place, which
connection was called pothos, and from this sprang
the seed of all. And the chaos knew not its own production, for it was
senseless; but from its embrace with the wind was generated Mot, or the ilus (mud).***** From this
proceeded the spores of creation and the generation of the universe.
"Zeus-Zen
(aether), and Chthonia (the
chaotic earth) and Metis (the water), his wives; Osiris and Isis-Latona -- the
former god also representing ether -- the first emanation of the Supreme Deity,
Amun, the primeval source of light; the goddess earth
and water again; Mithras,****** the rock-born god,
the symbol of the male mundane-fire, or the personified primordial light, and Mithra, the fire-goddess, at once his mother and his wife:
the pure element of fire (the active or male principle) regarded as light and
heat, in conjunction with earth and water, or matter (female, or passive,
elements of Cosmical generation)
NOTE
* Plato: "Timaeus."
** "Suidas" v. Tyrrhenia."
*** The reader will
understand that by "years" is meant "ages," not mere
periods of thirteen lunar months each.
**** See the Greek
translation by Philo Byblus.
***** Cory:
"Ancient Fragment."
****** Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the Theos ekpetros -- god of the
rock.
ONE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
Mithras is the son of Bordj,
the Persian mundane mountain,* from which he flashed out as a radiant ray of
light. Brahma, the fire-god, and his prolific consort; and the Hindu Agni, the
refulgent deity from whose body issue a thousand streams of glory and seven
tongues of flame, and in whose honour certain Brahmans preserve to this day a
perpetual fire; Siva, personated by the mundane mountain of the Hindus, the Meru: these terrific fire-gods, who are said in the legend
to have descended from heaven, like the Jewish Jehovah, in a pillar of fire,
and a dozen other Archaic double-sexed deities, all loudly proclaim their
hidden meaning. And what could these dual myths mean but the psychochemical
principle of primordial creation? The first Evolution in its triple
manifestation of spirit, force and matter; the divine correllation
at its starting point, allegorized as the marriage of Fire and water, products
of electrifying spirit, union of the male active principle with the female
passive element, which become the parents of their tellurian child, cosmic
matter, the prima materia, whose soul is AEther, and whose shadow is the ASTRAL LIGHT!" (
The
fragments of the systems that have now reached us are rejected as absurd
fables. Nevertheless, occult Science -- having survived even the great Flood
that submersed the antediluvian giants and with them their very memory, save in
the Secret Doctrine, the Bible and other Scriptures -- still holds the Key to
all the world problems.
Let
us apply that Key to the rare fragments of long-forgotten cosmogonies and try
by their scattered parts to re-establish the once Universal Cosmogony of The Key fits them
all. No one can study ancient philosophies seriously without perceiving that
the striking similitude of conception between all -- in their exoteric form
very often, in their hidden spirit invariably -- is the result of no mere
coincidence, but of a concurrent design: and that there was, during the youth
of mankind, one languages, one knowledge, one universal religion, when there
were no churches, no creeds or sects, but when every man was a priest unto
himself. And, if it is shown that already in those ages which are shut out from
our sight by the exuberant growth of tradition, human religious thought
developed in uniform sympathy in every portion of the globe; then, it becomes
evident that, born under whatever latitude, in the cold North or the burning
South, in the East or West, that thought was inspired by the same revelations,
and man was nurtured under the protecting shadow of the same TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
NOTE
* Bordj
is called a fire-mountain -- a volcano; therefore it contains fire, rock, earth
and water: the male, or active and the female, or passive, elements. The myth
is suggestive.
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