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HELENA BLAVATSKY EXPLAINS IT BETTER THAN I CAN!
FROM ISIS UNVEILED http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd1-1-11.htm
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 213 THE CREATIVE POWERS.
STANZA VII.
1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE (a).
FIRST, THE DIVINE (vehicle) (b), THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT (Atman); THEN THE SPIRITUAL -- (Atma-Buddhi, Spirit-soul)*
(c); (again) THE THREE FROM THE ONE (d), THE FOUR FROM THE ONE (e), AND THE FIVE (f), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE
FIVE AND THE SEVEN (g) -- THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD AND THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE "MIND-BORN SONS OF THE
FIRST LORD (Avalokiteswara) THE SHINING SEVEN (the "Builders").** IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, O
LANOO; THEY WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER, BHUMI (the Earth).
(a) The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders,
recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with
the Seven Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual, and ethereal
Beings.
The Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the "four bodies and the three
faculties" of Brahma exoterically, and the Panchasyam, the five Brahmas, or the five Dhyani-Buddhas in the
Buddhist system.
The highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the "Fiery Lions" and
the "Lions of Life," whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole
of the superior divine World. They are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper
Sephirothal TRIAD, which is placed by the Kabalists in the "Archetypal World."
The same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese system, in the "Beginnings" as taught
by both the Shinto and the Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the Divine
merges into the human, and creates midway in its descent into matter -- the visible Universe. The legendary
personages -- remarks reverentially Omoie -- "having to be understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the
higher (secret) doctrine, and its sublime truths." To state it at full length, however, would occupy too much
of our space, but a few words on this old system cannot be out of place. The
following is a short synopsis of this Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely the most separated notions
echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.
When all was as yet Chaos (Kon-ton) three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) Ame no
ani naka nushi no Kami, "Divine Monarch of the Central Heaven"; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, "Exalted,
imperial Divine offspring of Heaven and the Earth"; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami, "Offspring of the
Gods," simply.
These were without form or substance (our arupa triad), as neither the celestial nor the terrestrial substance
had yet differentiated, "nor had the essence of things been formed."
In the Zohar -- which, as now arranged and re-edited by Moses de Leon, with the help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian
Gnostics in the XIIth century, and corrected and revised still later by many Christian hands, is only a little
less exoteric than the Bible itself -- this divine "Vehicle" no longer appears as it does in the "Chaldean
Book of Numbers." True enough, Ain-Soph, the ABSOLUTE ENDLESS NO-THING, uses also the form of the ONE, the
manifested "Heavenly man" (the FIRST CAUSE) as its chariot (Mercabah, in Hebrew; Vahan, in Sanskrit)
or vehicle to descend into, and manifest through, in
the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists neither make it plain how the ABSOLUTE can use anything, or exercise any
attribute whatever, since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of attributes; nor do they explain that in reality it
is the First Cause (Plato's Logos) the original and eternal IDEA, that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the Second
Logos, so to speak. In the "Book of Numbers" it is explained that EN (or Ain, Aior) is the only self-existent,
whereas its "Depth" (Bythos or Buthon of the Gnostics, called Propator) is only periodical. The latter
is Brahm as differentiated from Brahma or Parabrahm. It is the Depth, the Source of Light, or Propator, which is
the unmanifested Logos or the abstract Idea, and not Ain-Soph, whose ray
uses Adam-Kadmon or the manifested Logos (the objective Universe) "male and female" -- as a chariot through
which to manifest. But in the Zohar we read the following incongruity: "Senior occultatus est et absconditus;
Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus." (Rosenroth; Liber Mysterii, IV., 1.) This is a fallacy,
since Microprosopus or the microcosm, can only exist during its manifestations, and is destroyed during the Maha-Pralayas.
Rosenroth's Kabala is no guide, but very often a puzzle.
(b) As in the Japanese system, in the Egyptian, and every old cosmogony -- at this divine FLAME, The "One,"
are lit the three descending groups. Having their potential being in the higher group, they now become distinct
and separate Entities. These are called the "Virgins of Life," the "Great Illusion," etc.,
etc., and collectively the "Six-pointed Star." The latter is the symbol, in almost every religion, of
the Logos as the first emanation. It is that of Vishnu in India (the Chakra, or wheel), and the glyph of the Tetragrammaton,
the "He of the four letters" or -- metaphorically -- "the limbs of Microprosopos" in the
Kabala, which are ten and six respectively. The later Kabalists however, especially the Christian mystics, have
played sad havoc with this magnificent symbol.* For the "ten limbs" of the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth;
but the first Heavenly Man is the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe, and ought never to be degraded into Microprosopus
-- the lesser Face or Countenance, the prototype of man on the terrestrial plane.** Of this, however, later on.
The six-pointed Star refers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles, etc., etc., all
synthesized by the seventh, or the central point in the Star. All these, the upper and lower hierarchies included,
emanate from the "Heavenly or Celestial Virgin,"*** the great
mother in all religions, the Androgyne, the Sephira-Adam-Kadmon. In its Unity, primordial light is the seventh,
or highest, principle, Daivi-prakriti, the light of the unmanifested Logos. But in its differentiation it becomes
Fohat, or the "Seven Sons." The former is symbolised by the Central point in the double-Triangle; the
latter by the hexagon itself, or the "six limbs" of the Microprosopus the Seventh
being Malkuth, the "Bride" of the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the expressions:
"The first after the 'One' is divine Fire; the second, Fire and AEther; the third is composed of Fire, AEther
and Water; the fourth of Fire, AEther, Water, and Air."* The One is not concerned with Man-bearing globes,
but with the inner invisible Spheres. "The 'First-Born' are the LIFE, the heart and pulse of the Universe;
the Second are its MIND or Consciousness,"
(c) The second Order of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and AEther (corresponding to Spirit and Soul, or the Atma-Buddhi)
whose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely "substantial." They are the first differentiation
in the Secondary Evolution or "Creation" -- a misleading word. As the name shows, they are the prototypes
of the incarnating Jivas or Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life. It is through these that passes,
like a pure solar beam, the ray which is furnished by them with its future vehicle, the Divine Soul, Buddhi. These
are directly concerned with the Hosts of the higher world of our system. From these twofold Units emanate the threefold.
In the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic mass, an egglike nucleus appears, having within itself the
germ and potency of all the universal as well as of all terrestrial life, it is the "three-fold" just
named, which differentiates. "The male aethereal" (Yo) principle ascends and the female grosser
or more material principle (In) is precipitated into the Universe of substance, when a separation occurs between
the celestial and the terrestrial. From this the female, the mother, the first rudimentary objective being is born.
It is ethereal, without form or sex, and yet it is from this and the mother that the Seven Divine Spirits are born,
from whom will emanate the seven creations, just as in the Codex Nazaraeus from Karabtanos and the Mother Spiritus
the seven evilly disposed (material) spirits are born. It would be too long to give here the Japanese names, but
once translated they stand in this order: --
(1.) The "Invisible Celibate," which is the creative logos of the noncreating "father," or
the creative potentiality of the latter made manifest.
(2.) "The Spirit (or the God) of the rayless depths" (of Chaos); which becomes differentiated matter,
or the world-stuff; also the mineral realm.
(3.) "The Spirit of the Vegetable Kingdom," of the "Abundant Vegetation."
(4.) This one is of dual nature, being at the same time "The Spirit of the Earth" and "the Spirit
of the Sands," the former containing the potentiality of the male element, the latter that of the female element,
the two forming a combined nature.
These two were ONE; yet unconscious of being two.
In this duality were contained (a) the male, dark and muscular Being, Isu no gai no Kami; and (b) Eku gai no Kami,
the female, fair and weaker or more delicate Being. Then, the: --
(5th and 6th.) Spirits who were androgynous or dual-sexed, and, finally: --
(7.) The Seventh Spirit, the last emanated from the "mother," appears as the first divine human form
distinctly male and female. It was the seventh creation, as in the Puranas, wherein man is the seventh creation
of Brahma.
These, Tsanagi-Tsanami, descended into the Universe by the celestial Bridge (the milky way), and "Tsanagi,
perceiving far below a chaotic mass of cloud and water, thrust his jewelled spear into the depths, and dry land
appeared." Then the two separated to explore Onokoro, the newly-created island-world; etc., etc. (Omoie).
Such are the Japanese exoteric fables, the rind that conceals the kernel of the same one truth of the Secret Doctrine.
Turning back to the esoteric explanations in every cosmogony: --
(d) The Third order corresponds to the Atma-Buddhi-Manas: Spirit, Soul and Intellect, and is called the "Triads."
(e) The Fourth are substantial Entities. This is the highest group among the Rupas (Atomic Forms*). It is the nursery
of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They are called the "Imperishable Jivas," and constitute, through
the order below their own, the first group of the first septenary** host -- the great mystery of human conscious
and intellectual Being. For the latter are the field wherein lies concealed in its privation the germ that will
fall into generation. That germ will become the spiritual potency in the physical cell that guides the development
of the embryo, and which is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties and all the inherent qualities
in man. The Darwinian theory, however, of the
transmission of acquired faculties, is neither taught nor accepted in Occultism. Evolution, in it, proceeds on
quite other lines; the physical, according to esoteric teaching, evolving gradually from the spiritual, mental,
and psychic. This inner soul of the physical cell -- this "spiritual plasm" that dominates the germinal
plasm -- is the key that must open one day the gates of the terra incognita of the Biologist, now called the dark
mystery of Embryology.
(f) The Fifth group is a very mysterious one, as it is connected with the Microcosmic Pentagon, the five-pointed
star representing man. In India and Egypt these Dhyanis were connected with the Crocodile, and their abode is in
Capricornus. These are convertible terms in Indian astrology, as this (tenth) sign of the Zodiac is called Makara,
loosely translated "crocodile." The word itself is occultly interpreted in various ways, as will be shown
further on. In Egypt the defunct man -- whose symbol is the pentagram or the five-pointed star, the points of which
represent the limbs of a man -- was shown emblematically transformed into a crocodile: Sebakh or Sevekh "or
seventh," as Mr. Gerald Massey says, showing it as
having been the type of intelligence, is a dragon in reality, not a crocodile. He is the "Dragon of Wisdom"
or Manas, the "Human Soul," Mind, the Intelligent principle, called in our esoteric philosophy the "Fifth"
principle.
Says the defunct "Osirified" in ch. lxxxviii., "Book of the Dead," or the Ritual, under the
glyph of a mummiform god with a crocodile's head: --
(1) "I am the god (crocodile) presiding at the fear . . . at the arrival of his Soul among men. I am the god-crocodile
brought for destruction" (an allusion to the destruction of divine spiritual purity when man acquires the
knowledge of good and evil; also to the "fallen" gods, or angels of every theogony).
(2) "I am the fish of the great Horus (as Mankara is the "crocodile," the vehicle of Varuna). I
am merged in Sekten."
This last sentence gives the corroboration of, and repeats the doctrine of, esoteric Buddhism, for it alludes directly
to the fifth principle (Manas), or the most spiritual part of its essence rather, which merges into, is absorbed
by, and made one with Atma-Buddhi after the death of man. For Se-khen is the residence or loka of the god Khem
(Horus-Osiris, or Father and Son), hence the "Devachan" of Atma-Buddhi. In the Ritual of the Dead the
defunct is shown entering into Sekhem with Horus-Thot and "emerging from it as pure spirit" (lxiv., 29).
Thus the defunct says (v. 130): "I see the forms of (myself, as various) men
transforming eternally . . . I know this (chapter). He who knows it . . . takes all kinds of living forms."
. . .
And in verse 35, addressing in magic formula that which is called, in Egyptian esotericism, the "ancestral
heart," or the re-incarnating principle, the permanent EGO, the defunct says: --
"Oh my heart, my ancestral heart necessary for my transformations, . . . . . . do not separate thyself from
me before the guardian of the Scales. Thou art my personality within my breast, divine companion watching over
my fleshes (bodies). . . . . .."
It is in Sekhem that lies concealed "the Mysterious Face," or the real man concealed under the false
personality, the triple-crocodile of Egypt, the symbol of the higher Trinity or human Triad, Atma, Buddhi and Manas.*
In all the ancient papyri the crocodile is called Sebek (Seventh), while the water is the fifth principle esoterically;
and, as already stated, Mr. Gerald Massey shows that the crocodile was "the Seventh Soul, the supreme one
of seven -- the Seer unseen." Even exoterically Sekhem is the residence of the god Khem, and Khem is Horus
avenging the death of his father Osiris, hence punishing the Sins of man when he becomes a disembodied Soul. Thus
the defunct "Osirified" became the god Khem, who "gleans the field of Aanroo," i.e., he gleans
either his reward or punishment, as that field is the celestial locality (Devachan) where the defunct is given
wheat, the food of divine justice. The fifth group of the celestial Beings is supposed to contain in itself the
dual attributes of both the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two poles, so to say, of Mahat
the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature of man, the spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five,
multiplied and made into ten, connecting it with Makara, the 10th sign of Zodiac.
(g) The sixth and seventh groups partake of the lower qualities of the Quaternary. They are conscious, ethereal
Entities, as invisible as Ether, which are shot out like the boughs of a tree from the first central group of the
four, and shoot out in their turn numberless side groups, the lower of which are the Nature-Spirits, or Elementals
of countless kinds and varieties; from the formless and unsubstantial -- the ideal THOUGHTS of their creators --
down to the Atomic, though, to human perception, invisible organisms. The latter are considered as the "Spirits
of Atoms" for they are the first remove (backwards) from the physical Atom -- sentient, if not intelligent
creatures. They are all subject to Karma, and have to work it out through every cycle. For, as the doctrine teaches,
there are no such privileged beings in the universe, whether in our or in other systems, in the outer or the inner
worlds,* as the angels of the Western Religion and the Judean. A Dhyan Chohan has to become one; he cannot be born
or appear suddenly on the plane of life as a full-blown angel. The Celestial Hierarchy of the present Manvantara
will find itself transferred in the next cycle of life into higher, superior worlds, and will make room for a new
hierarchy, composed of the elect ones of our mankind. Being is an endless cycle within the one absolute eternity,
wherein move numberless inner cycles finite and conditioned. Gods, created as such, would evince no personal merit
in being gods. Such a class of beings, perfect only by virtue of the special immaculate nature inherent in them,
in the face of suffering and struggling humanity, and even of the lower creation, would be the symbol of an eternal
injustice quite Satanic in character, an ever present crime. It is an anomaly and an impossibility in Nature. Therefore
the "Four" and the "Three" have to incarnate as all other beings have. This sixth group, moreover,
remains almost inseparable from man, who draws from it all but his highest and lowest principles, or his spirit
and body, the five middle human principles being the very essence of those Dhyanis.* Alone, the Divine Ray (the
Atman) proceeds directly from the One. When asked how that can be? How is it possible to conceive that those "gods,"
or angels, can be at the same
time their own emanations and their personal selves? Is it in the same sense in the material world, where the son
is (in one way) his father, being his blood, the bone of his bone and the flesh of his flesh? To this the teachers
answer "Verily it is so." But one has to go deep into the mystery of BEING before one can fully
comprehend this truth.
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STANZA VII. -- THE RAYS
2. THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM (of Form, Sthula-sarira,
external body). THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY BEADS (pearls) (a).
(a) This sloka expresses the conception -- a purely Vedantic one, as already explained elsewhere -- of a life-thread,
Sutratma, running through successive generations. How, then, can this be explained? By resorting to a simile, to
a familiar illustration, though necessarily imperfect, as all our available analogies must be. Before resorting
to it, however, I would ask whether it seems unnatural, least of all "supernatural," to any one of us,
when we consider that process known as the growth and development of a foetus into a healthy baby weighing several
pounds evolves from what? From the segmentation of an
infinitesimally small ovum and a spermatozoon; and afterwards we see that baby develop into a six-foot man! This
refers to the atomic and physical expansion from the microscopically small into something very large, from the
-- to the naked eye -- unseen, into the visible and objective. Science has provided for all this; and, I dare say,
her theories, embryological, biological, and physiological, are correct enough so far as exact observation of the
material goes. Nevertheless, the two chief difficulties of the science of
embryology -- namely, what are the forces at work in the formation of the foetus, and the cause of "hereditary
transmission" of likeness, physical, moral or mental -- have never been properly answered; nor will they ever
be solved till the day when scientists condescend to accept the Occult theories.* But if this physical phenomenon
astonishes no one, except in so far as it puzzles the Embryologists, why should our intellectual and inner growth,
the evolution of the human-spiritual to the Divine-Spiritual, be regarded as, or seem, more impossible than the
other? Now to the simile.
Complete the physical plasm, mentioned in the last foot-note, the "Germinal Cell" of man with all its
material potentialities, with the "spiritual plasm," so to say, or the fluid that contains the five lower
principles of the six-principled Dhyan -- and you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough to understand it.
"When the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of the animal woman, that seed cannot germinate unless
it has been fructified by the five virtues (the fluid of, or the emanation from the principles) of the six-fold
Heavenly man. Wherefore the Microcosm is represented as a Pentagon, within the Hexagon Star, the "Macrocosm."
("[[Anthropos]],") a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.). Then: "The functions of Jiva on this Earth
are of a five-fold character. In the mineral atom it is connected with the lowest principles of the Spirits of
the Earth (the six-fold Dhyanis); in the vegetable particle, with their second -- the Prana (life); in the animal,
with all these plus the third and the fourth; in man, the germ must receive the fruition of all the five. Otherwise
he will be born no higher than an animal"; namely, a congenital idiot. Thus in man alone the Jiva is complete.
As to his seventh principle, it is but one of the Beams of the Universal Sun. Each rational creature receives only
the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source; while his physical body is shaped by the lowest terrestrial
lives, through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution. "The Blessed Ones have nought to do with the
purgations of matter."
(Kabala, Chaldean Book of Numbers).
It comes to this: Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris);
in its qualitative and physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the "Ancestors," the lowest Dhyanis,
or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature, it is indebted to a group of divine Beings,
the name and characteristics of which will be given in Book II. Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of
various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some
of them. In our present all-material Fifth Race, the earthly Spirit of the Fourth is still strong in us; but we
are approaching the time when the pendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly upwards, bringing Humanity
back on a parallel line with the primitive third Root-Race in Spirituality. During its childhood, mankind was composed
wholly of that Angelic Host, who were the indwelling Spirits that animated the monstrous and gigantic tabernacles
of clay of the Fourth Race built by (as they are now also) and composed of countless myriads of lives.
Man is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the "Lord God"; but he is the child of the
Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into the singular masculine gender. The first Dhyanis, commissioned to "create"
man in their image, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model for the Nature Spirits of matter
to work upon. Man is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners
were many. Nor can it be said that the "Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," unless
that God is identified with the "ONE LIFE," Omnipresent though invisible, and unless the same operation
is attributed to "God" on behalf of every living Soul -- or Nephesch, which is
the vital Soul, not the divine Spirit or Ruach, which ensures to man alone a divine degree of immortality, that
no animal, as such, could ever attain in this cycle of incarnation. It is the inadequate distinctions made by the
Jews, and now by our Western metaphysicians, who, not knowing of, and being unable to understand, hence to accept,
more than a triune man -- Spirit, Soul, Body -- thus confuse the "breath of life" with immortal Spirit.*
This applies also directly to the Protestant theologians, who, in translating verse 8 of Ch. III. in the Fourth
Gospel, have entirely perverted the meaning. Indeed the verse is made to say "The wind bloweth where it listeth,"
instead of "the Spirit goeth where it willeth," as in the original and also in the translation of the
Greek Eastern Church.
Thus the philosophy of psychic, spiritual, and mental relations with man's physical functions is in almost inextricable
confusion. Neither the old Aryan, nor the Egyptian psychology are now properly understood. Nor can they be assimilated
without accepting the esoteric septenary, or, at any rate, the Vedantic quinquepartite division of the human inner
principles. Failing which, it will be for ever impossible to understand the metaphysical and purely psychic and
even physiological relations between the Dhyan-Chohans, or Angels, on the one plane, and humanity on the other.
No Eastern (Aryan) esoteric
works are so far published, but we possess the Egyptian papyri which speak clearly of the seven principles or the
"Seven Souls of Man."* The Book of the Dead gives a complete list of the "transformations"
that every defunct undergoes, while divesting himself, one by one, of all those principles -- materialised for
the sake of clearness into ethereal entities or bodies. We must, moreover, remind those who try to prove that the
ancient Egyptians knew nothing of and did not teach Reincarnation, that the "Soul" (the Ego or Self)
of the defunct is said to be living in Eternity: it is immortal, "co-eval with, and disappearing with the
Solar boat," i.e., for the cycle of necessity. This "Soul" emerges from the
Tiaou (the realm of the cause of life) and joins the living on Earth by day, to return to Tiaou every night. This
expresses the periodical existences of the Ego. (Book of the Dead, cvxliii.)
The shadow, the astral form, is annihilated, "devoured by the Uraeus" (cxlix., 51), the Manes will be
annihilated; the two twins (the 4th and 5th principles) will be scattered; but the Soul-bird, "the divine
Swallow -- and the Uraeus of Flame" (Manas and Atma-Buddhi) will live in the eternity, for they are their
mother's husbands.**
Like alone produces like. The Earth gives Man his body, the gods (Dhyanis) his five inner principles, the psychic
Shadow, of which those gods are often the animating principle. SPIRIT (Atman) is one -- and indiscrete. It is not
in the Tiaou.
For what is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the "Book of the Dead" contains a mystery. Tiaou
is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them
on the concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their esotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery
-- astronomical, physiological, and psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle of existence and then returned
to his birth-place before issuing from it again. Thus the defunct is shown arriving in the West, receiving his
judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the god Horus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical
assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the Noot (the celestial abyss), returning once more to Tiaou:
an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon. Plutarch (Isis and Osiris,
ch. xliii.) shows the Egyptians celebrating a festival called "The Ingress of Osiris into the moon."
In chapter xli. life is promised after death; and the renovation of life is placed under the patronage of Osiris-Lunus,
because the moon was the symbol of
life-renewals or reincarnations, owing to its growth, waning, dying, and reappearance every month. In the Dankmoe,
(iv. 5) it is said: -- "Oh, Osiris-Lunus! That renews to thee thy renewal." And Safekh says to Seti I.
(Mariette's Abydos, plate 51), "Thou renewest thyself as the god Lunus when a babe." It is still better
explained in a Louvre papyrus (P. Pierret, "Etudes Egyptologiques"): "Couplings and conceptions
abound when he (Osiris-Lunus) is seen in heaven on that day." Says Osiris: "Oh, sole radiant beam of
the moon! I issue from the circulating multitudes (of stars) . . . . . . Open me the Tiaou, for Osiris N. I will
issue by day to do what I have to do amongst the living" ("Book of the Dead," ch. ii.), -- i.e.,
to produce conceptions.
Osiris was "God manifest in generation," because the ancients knew, far better than the moderns, the
real occult influences of the lunar body upon the mysteries of conception.* Later on, when the moon became connected
with female goddesses** -- with Diana, Isis, Artemis, Juno, etc., that connection was due to a thorough knowledge
of physiology and female nature, physical as much as psychic. But, primarily, the Sun and Moon were the only visible
and, so to say, tangible [by their effects] psychic and physiological
deities -- the Father and the Son, while Space and air in general, or that expanse of Heaven called Noot by the
Egyptians, was the concealed Spirit or Breath of the two. These "Father and Son" were interchangeable
in their functions and worked harmoniously together in their effects upon terrestrial nature and humanity; hence
they were regarded as ONE, though TWO in personified Entities. They were both males, and both had their distinct
and also collaborative work in the causative generation of Humanity. So much from the astronomical and cosmic standpoints
viewed and expressed in symbolical language -- which became in our last races theological and dogmatic. But behind
this veil of Cosmic and Astrological
symbols, there were the Occult mysteries of Anthropography and the primeval genesis of man. And in this, no knowledge
of symbols -- or even the key to the post-diluvian symbolical language of the Jews -- will, or can help, save only
with reference to that which was laid down in national scriptures for exoteric uses; the sum of which, however
cleverly veiled, was only the smallest portion of the real primitive history of each people, often relating, moreover,
-- as in the Hebrew Scriptures -- merely to the terrestrial human, not divine life of that nation. That psychic
and spiritual element belonged to MYSTERY and INITIATION. There were things never recorded in scrolls, but, as
in Central Asia, on rocks and in subterranean crypts.
Nevertheless, there was a time when the whole world was "of one lip and of one knowledge," and Man knew
more of his origin than he does now, and thus knew that the Sun and Moon, however large a part they do play in
the constitution, growth and development of the human body, were not the direct causative agents of his appearance
on Earth; these agents being, in truth, the living and intelligent Powers which the Occultists call Dhyan Chohans.
As to this, a very learned admirer of the Jewish Esotericism tells us that "the Kabala says expressly that
Elohim is a 'general abstraction'; what we call in mathematics 'a constant co-efficient' or a 'general function'
entering into all construction, not particular; that is, by the general ratio 1 to 31415, (the astro-Dhyanic and)
Elohistic figures." To this the Eastern Occultist replies: Quite so, it is an abstraction to our physical
senses. To our spiritual perceptions, however, and to our inner spiritual eye, the Elohim or Dhyanis are no more
an abstraction than our soul and spirit are to us. Reject the one and you reject the
other -- since that which is the surviving Entity in us is partly the direct emanation from, and partly those celestial
Entities themselves. One thing is sure; the Jews were perfectly acquainted with sorcery and various maleficent
forces; but, with the exception of some of their great prophets and seers like Daniel and Ezekiel (Enoch belonging
to a far distant race and not to any nation but to all, as a generic character), they knew little of, nor would
they deal with, the real divine Occultism, their national character being averse to anything which had no direct
bearing upon their own ethnical, tribal, and individual benefits -- witness their own prophets, and the curses
thundered by them against the "stiff-necked race." But even the Kabala plainly shows the direct relation
between the Sephiroth, or Elohim, and men. Therefore, when it is proved to us that the Kabalistic identification
of Jehovah with Binah, a female Sephiroth, has still
another, a sub-occult meaning in it, then and then only the Occultist will be ready to pass the palm of perfection
to the Kabalist. Until then, it is asserted that, as Jehovah is in the abstract sense of a "one living God,"
a single number, a metaphysical figment, and a reality only when put in his proper place as an emanation and a
Sephiroth -- we have a right to maintain that the Zohar (as witnessed by the BOOK OF NUMBERS, at any rate), gave
out originally, before the Christian Kabalists had disfigured it, and still gives out the same doctrine that we
do; i.e., it makes Man emanate, not from one Celestial MAN, but from a Septenary group of Celestial men or Angels,
just as in "Pymander, the Thought Divine."
(3) WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO -- THE "THREE-FOLD" APPEARS (a). THE THREE ARE (linked into) ONE; AND
IT IS OUR THREAD, O LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT, CALLED SAPTAPARNA (b).
(a) "When the ONE becomes two, the three-fold appears": to wit, when the One Eternal drops its reflection
into the region of Manifestation, that reflection, "the Ray," differentiates the "Water of Space";
or, in the words of the "Book of the Dead"; "Chaos ceases, through the effulgence of the Ray of
Primordial light dissipating total darkness by the help of the great magic power of the WORD of the (Central) Sun."
Chaos becomes male-female, and Water, incubated through Light, and the "three-fold being issues as its First-born."
"Osiris-Ptah (or RA) creates his own limbs (like Brahma) by creating the gods destined to personify his phases"
during the Cycle (xvii., 4). The Egyptian Ra, issuing from the DEEP, is the Divine
Universal Soul in its manifested aspect, and so is Narayana, the Purusha, "concealed in Akasa and present
in Ether."
This is the metaphysical explanation, and refers to the very beginning of Evolution, or, as we should rather say,
of Theogony. The meaning of the Stanza when explained from another standpoint in its reference to the mystery of
man and his origin, is still more difficult to comprehend. In order to form a clear conception of what is meant
by the One becoming two, and then being transformed into the "three-fold," the student has to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with what we call "Rounds." If he refers to "Esoteric Buddhism" -- the
first attempt to sketch out an approximate outline of archaic Cosmogony -- he will find that by a "Round"
is meant the serial evolution of nascent material nature, of the seven globes of our chain* with their mineral,
vegetable, and animal kingdoms (man being there included in the latter and standing at the head of it) during the
whole period of a life-cycle. The latter would be called by the Brahmins "a Day of Brahma." It is, in
short, one revolution of the "Wheel" (our planetary chain), which is composed of seven globes (or seven
separate "Wheels," in another sense this time). When evolution has run downward into matter, from planet
A to planet G, or Z, as the Western students call it, it is one Round. In the middle of the Fourth revolution,
which is our present "Round": "Evolution has reached its acme of physical development, crowned its
work with the perfect physical man, and, from this point, begins its work spirit-ward." All this needs little
repetition, as it is well explained in "Esoteric Buddhism." That which was hardly touched upon, and of
which the little that was said has misled many, is the origin of man, and it is upon this that a little more light
may now be thrown, just enough to make the Stanza more comprehensible, as the process will be fully explained only
in its legitimate place, in Book II.
Now every "Round" (on the descending scale) is but a repetition in a more concrete form of the Round
which preceded it, as every globe -- down to our fourth sphere (the actual earth) -- is a grosser and more material
copy of the more shadowy sphere which precedes it in their successive order, on the three higher planes. On its
way upwards on the ascending arc, Evolution spiritualises and etherealises, so to speak, the general nature of
all, bringing it on to a level with the plane on which the twin globe on the opposite side is placed; the result
being, that when the seventh globe is reached (in whatever Round) the nature of everything that is evolving returns
to the condition it was in at its starting point -- plus, every time, a new and superior degree in the states of
consciousness. Thus it becomes clear that the "origin of man," so-called, on this our present
Round, or life-cycle on this planet, must occupy the same place in the same order -- save details based on local
conditions and time -- as in the preceding Round. Again, it must be explained and remembered that, as the work
of each Round is said to be apportioned to a different group of so-called "Creators" or "Architects,"
so is that of every globe; i.e., it is under the supervision and guidance of special "Builders" and "Watchers"
-- the various Dhyan-Chohans.
The group of the hierarchy which is commissioned to "create"* men is a special group, then; yet it evolved
shadowy man in this cycle just as a higher and still more spiritual group evolved him in the Third Round. But as
it is the Sixth -- on the downward scale of Spirituality -- the last and seventh being the terrestrial Spirits
(elementals) which gradually form, build, and condense his physical body -- this Sixth group evolves no more than
the future man's shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible transparent copy of themselves. It becomes the task of the
fifth Hierarchy -- the mysterious beings that preside over the constellation Capricornus, Makara, or "Crocodile"
in India as in Egypt -- to inform the empty and ethereal animal form and make of it the Rational Man. This is one
of those subjects upon which very little may be said to the general public. It is a MYSTERY, truly, but only to
him who is prepared to reject the existence of intellectual and conscious spiritual Beings in the Universe, limiting
full Consciousness to man alone, and that only as a "function of the Brain." Many are those among the
Spiritual Entities, who have incarnated bodily in man, since the beginning of his appearance, and who, for all
that, still exist as independently as they did before, in the infinitudes of Space. . . .
To put it more clearly: the invisible Entity may be bodily present on earth without abandoning, however, its status
and functions in the supersensuous regions. If this needs explanation, we can do no better than remind the reader
of like cases in Spiritualism, though such cases are very rare, at least as regards the nature of the Entity incarnating,
or taking temporary possession of a medium. Just as certain persons -- men and women, reverting to parallel cases
among living persons -- whether by virtue of a peculiar organization, or through the power of acquired mystic knowledge,
can be seen in their "double" in one place, while the body is many miles away; so the same thing can
occur in the case of superior Beings.
Man, philosophically considered, is, in his outward form, simply an animal, hardly more perfect than his pithecoid-like
ancestor of the third round. He is a living body, not a living being, since the realisation of existence, the "Ego-Sum,"
necessitates self-consciousness, and an animal can only have direct consciousness, or instinct. This was so well
understood by the Ancients that the Kabalist even made of soul and body two lives, independent of each other.*
The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethero-substantial envelope, could die and man be still living on earth
-- i.e., the soul could free itself
from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons -- such as insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc.**
Therefore, that which living men (Initiates) can do, the Dhyanis, who have no physical body to hamper them, can
do still better. This was the belief of the Antediluvians, and it is fast becoming that of modern intellectual
society, in Spiritualism, besides the Greek and Roman Churches, which teach the ubiquity of their angels. The Zoroastrians
regarded their Amshaspends as dual entities (Ferouers), applying this duality -- in esoteric philosophy, at any
rate -- to all the spiritual and invisible denizens of the numberless worlds in space which are visible to our
eye. In a note of Damascius (sixth century) on the Chaldean oracles, we have a triple evidence of the universality
of this doctrine, for he says: "In these oracles the seven Cosmocratores of the world, ('The World-Pillars,')
mentioned likewise by St. Paul, are double -- one set being commissioned to rule the superior worlds the spiritual
and the sidereal, and the other to guide and watch over the worlds of matter." Such is also the opinion of
Jamblichus, who makes an evident distinction between the archangels and the "Archontes." (See "De
Mysteriis," sec. ii., ch. 3.) The above may be applied, of course, to the distinction made between the degrees
or orders of spiritual beings, and it is in this sense that the Roman Catholic Church tries to interpret and teach
the difference; for while the archangels are in her teaching divine and holy, their doubles are denounced by her
as devils.* But the word "ferouer" is not to be understood in this sense, for it means simply the reverse
or the opposite side of some attribute or quality. Thus when the Occultist says that the "Demon is the lining
of God" (evil, the reverse of the medal), he does not mean two separate actualities, but the two aspects or
facets of the same Unity. Now the best man living would appear, side by side with an Archangel -- as described
in Theology -- a fiend. Hence a certain reason to depreciate a lower "double," immersed far
deeper in matter than its original. But there is still as little cause to regard them as devils, and this is precisely
what the Roman Catholics maintain against all reason and logic.
(b) The concluding sentence of this sloka shows how archaic is the belief and the doctrine that man is seven-fold
in his constitution. The thread of being which animates man and passes through all his personalities, or rebirths
on this Earth (an allusion to Sutratma), the thread on which moreover all his "Spirits" are strung --
is spun from the essence of the "threefold," the "fourfold" and the "fivefold"; which
contain all the preceding. Panchasikha, agreeably to Bhagavata Purana is one of the seven Kumaras who go to Sveta-Dvipa
to worship Vishnu. We shall see further on, what connection there is between the "celibate" and chaste
sons of Brahma, who refuse "to multiply," and terrestrial mortals. Meanwhile it is
evident that "the Man-Plant," Saptaparna, thus refers to the seven principles, and man is compared to
the seven-leaved plant of this name* so sacred among Buddhists.
4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES, THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS* (a) . . . THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS,
THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME (their upper triad) SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN, THEIR FLAME; THE BEAMS AND SPARKS
OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF THE EARTH ("Bhumi," or "Prithivi")**
(b).
(a) The "Three-tongued flame" that never dies is the immo rtal spiritual triad -- the Atma-Buddhi and
Manas -- the fruition of the latter assimilated by the first two after every terrestrial life. The "four wicks"
that go out and are extinguished, are the four lower principles, including the body.
"I am the three-wicked Flame and my wicks are immortal," says the defunct. "I enter into the domain
of Sekhem (the God whose arm sows the seed of action produced by the disembodied soul) and I enter the region of
the Flames who have destroyed their adversaries," i.e., got rid of the sin-creating "four wicks."
(See chap. i., vii., "Book of the Dead," and the "Mysteries of Ro-stan.")
(b) Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean above which one and the same moon is shining,
so our evanescent personalities -- the illusive envelopes of the immortal MONAD-EGO -- twinkle and dance on the
waves of Maya. They last and appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the moon-beams, only so long as the
Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on the running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then they
disappear, the beams -- symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos -- alone surviving, re-merged in, and being, as they
were before, one with the Mother-Source.
ON THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS.
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