|
THE ESOTERIC PAPERS OF MADAME BLAVATSKY |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
THE PRINTING OF THE E.S. INSTRUCTIONS H.P.B.'s Instructions were first issued in 1889 in mimeographed form. H.P.B. refers to this process in these words: 'Five or six wretched voluntary martyrs among my esotericists have to draw, write and lithograph during the nights, some 320 copies of [E.S. Instructions] ....' Using a "primitive" mimeograph, Hentry T. Edge and several other E.S. members made stencils and mimeographed copies using an ink roller. Sheets had to be spread out to dry. Copies were then sent to members throughout the world. Copies were sent to Judge for distribution to E.S. members in America. In late 1889, William Judge founded the Aryan Press. James M. Pryse typesetted and printed in book form Instructions I, II and III. This first printed edition was completed by early summer 1890. This edition was marked "Printed privately on the Aryan Press". Copies were sent to London.
PRINTED PRIVATELY ON THE ARYAN PRESS. James Pryse tells the story: "My brother John and I, returning from a trip to South America, landed in New York City, We found Mr. Judge perplexed by a difficult problem: H.P.B. had directed him to send her Instructions to all the American members of the E.S., but had sent him only one copy, and he had no facilities for making the many copies needed. We solved that problem for him by establishing the Aryan Press [6] and printing the Instructions in book-form. Then, in response to a cable from H.P.B. I went to London to do the same work there, and started the H.P.B. Press...." (The Canadian Theosophist, March, 1935, p. 2) Elsewhere, Pryse gives more details about the reprinting of the E.S. Instructions in London: "I started the H.P.B. Press, the capital being supplied by Dr. Archibald Keightley, to reprint the E.S.T. Instructions, which my brother John and I had previously printed in New York. It was slow work, as I did nearly all of it myself. For a time I had an outside compositor, and Thomas Green, a lawyer's clerk, in his spare hours helped me fold the sheets for binding. The work was finished to H.P.B.'s satisfaction...." [7] (The Canadian Theosophist, May, 1939, p. 75)
PRINTED PRIVATELY ON THE H.P.B. PRESS _______________ Notes: 6. "...Have started a small press here with an FTS in charge and shall print lots and save expense...." William Q. Judge "THE ARYAN PRESS....is a new effort put forth by New York Theosophists. It is a printing-press fully established now for the purpose of reducing cost of printing tracts, circulars, notices, and all such matter ...." The Path, Dec., 1889, p. 290. "...The attention of our readers is drawn to the fact that the Aryan Press is now in fully working order.... The Path, Jan., 1890, p. 238. 7. "...Mr. James M. Pryse, who has had charge of the Aryan Press since its establishment, sailed on Sept. 4th for the purpose of conducting a similar Press at the London Headquarters. The value of such an institution has been copiously demonstrated at the American Headquarters, and will be also in London...." The Path, Oct., 1890, pp. 228-229. "We are...now in possession of a printing machine (Bro. Jas. M. Pryse, who had charge of the Aryan press, having come over to assist us), and this will add infinitely to our possibilities of rapid and successful work....London, Oct., 1890. C.F.W. [right]." The Path, Dec., 1890, pp. 294-95. "Members of the E.S. are herewith notified that the new, privately printed copies of Instructions, I, II, and III, are ready....One thousand copies of the Instructions have been printed, and No. IV is now going through the press...." E.S. Circular, "Reprint of Instructions I, II and III", dated April, 1891, p. 1 & 4. *** Note about Text of H.P.B.'s Esoteric Instructions In the Foreword (p. xxi) to Volume XII of H.P.B.'s Collected Writings, Boris de Zirkoff writes that "... the student will find in its [Volume XII's] pages the complete, unaltered and unedited text of H.P.B.'s Esoteric Instructions." Unfortunately, the text of the Esoteric Instructions in Volume XII is found in a number of instances to be incomplete, altered and edited when compared with the 1889 and 1890 editions of H.P.B.'s Instructions. For example, the reader can compare the text found in H.P.B.'s Collected Writings, Volume XII, pp. 515-516 with pp. 83-85 of the present compilation. Almost all of the text on pp. 84-85 is missing from the Volume XII version. Also if the student carefully compares the rest of the text, he will find a good number of other changes. Whatever the reason(s) for these deletions and changes, the Volume XII version does not accurately reflect H.P.B.'s text as issued in 1889 and 1890.] *** E.S. INSTRUCTIONS NO. I BY H.P. BLAVATSKY (FACSIMILE OF 1890 ARYAN PRESS EDITION)
STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL PRINTED PRIVATELY ON THE ARYAN PRESS. INSTRUCTIONS NO. 1 January and February, 1889. Strictly Private and Confidential. [NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON DEMAND TO THE HEAD OF THE SECTION OR TO WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, P.O. BOX, BOX 2659, NEW YORK, N.Y.] E.S.T.S. -- No. 1 A Warning Addressed to All Members of the Esoteric Section. There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate itself, almost in every case, during the thirteen years that the T. S. has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a “Probationer,” certain occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man: his faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance, if a man is vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by Atavism or by Karmic heirloom, all those vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself. On the other hand, if one is good, generous, chaste, and abstemious, or has any virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be considered a Grandison, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to conceal his true nature, whether base or noble. This is an immutable law in the domain of the occult. Its action is the more marked, the more earnest and sincere is the desire of the candidate and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge. Therefore let all members of this Section be warned and on their guard; for even in the last three months, even before the esoteric teaching began, several of the most promising candidates have failed ignominiously. ESOTERIC SECTION. A Few Words as Preface. I allude to those charlatanesque imitations of Occultism and Theosophy of which the “Call to the Awakened,” lately published in the Boston Esoteric, is the most glaring example. The danger in this particular case is the greater because some men of real scientific attainments and knowledge seem to have been drawn into it, and thus give to it an appearance of real knowledge which may easily deceive the unwary. By pandering to the prejudices of people, and especially by adopting the false ideas of a personal God and a personal, carnalized Saviour, as the groundwork of their teaching, the leaders of this “swindle” (for such it is) are endeavoring to draw men to them and in particular to turn Theosophists from the true path. The H. B. of L., [Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor] of shameful memory in England, has now found a worthy substitute in the Esoteric College in Boston founded by a “Brahmin of Irish descent, thousands of years old,” (Vide “A Call from the Unseen,” etc.)
Stealing from us our esoteric Sanskrit terms, our facts --- which he disfigures --- and even our motto, “There is No Religion Higher than Truth,” this self-styled illuminator is sure to prepare thousands of enemies to Theosophy, when those “awakened” by him will awaken to the sad truth of having been swindled by this “Brahmin” & Co. Let all Theosophists be warned in time by the Esotericists.
True knowledge comes slowly and is not easily acquired. In this attempt the students will be at first confronted by the great difficulties of the disciple’s first steps upon the path of true Occultism. Even members of the E. S., especially those who crave for magic powers, are not unlikely to grow impatient and to rebel against the apparently slow progress made at first and at the amount of metaphysical and theoretic study required of them. To such the deceptive promises of quick results and grand achievements, of growth and progress, that are promised by the “Esoteric College” from day to day (??) will appear most attractive. But let all such take warning in time and avoid a snare in which they will at least leave the contents of their purses, even if they save their reputations. A close examination will assuredly reveal the whole scheme as a mere device for money getting and selfish gratification, in which materials largely stolen, as said, from Theosophical writings are distorted and falsified so as to be palmed off on the unwary as revelations of new and undreamed of truths. But many will neither have the time nor the opportunity for such a thorough investigation; and before they become aware of the imposture they may be led far from the Truth, as well as be despoiled of their property and, worse than that, of their health. Under these circumstances, it is the duty
of all members of the E. S. in America to do their utmost to unmask such
movements, for nothing is more dangerous to Esoteric Truth than the
garbled and distorted versions disfigured to suit the prejudices and
tastes of men in general. ESOTERIC SECTION. Instruction for January and February, 1889. The ancient occult axiom, “Know Thyself,” must be familiar to every member of this Section; but few if any have apprehended the real meaning of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity, siderial, psychic and spiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Self, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Selves” with the One Universal SELF. For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical, such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to begin the esoteric instruction by showing this connection in all directions with the worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Psychic, Siderial, Astral and Elemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the three higher worlds --- Archetypal, Spiritual, and Psychic --- we must master the relations of the seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malchuth as in the Kabala, to the four worlds or planes which immediately follow it. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 200 et seq.) It is clear that once the human body is admitted to have direct relation with such higher worlds, the specialization of the organs and parts of the body will necessitate the mention of all parts of the body without exception. In the eyes of truth and nature, no one organ is more noble or ignoble than any other organ. The ancients considered as the most holy precisely those organs which we associate with feelings of shame and secrecy: for they are the creative organs corresponding to the Creative Forces of the Kosmos. The Esotericists are therefore warned that unless they are prepared to take everything in the spirit of truth and nature, and to forget the code of false propriety bred by hypocrisy and the shameful misuse of primeval functions, once considered divine --- they had better not study Esotericism. *** “OM,” says the Aryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his conjuration of, or appeal to, non-human PRESENCES. “OM-MANI,” murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race; and after pausing he adds, “PADME-HUM.” This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning, “O the Jewel in the Lotus.” For although, literally, OM is a syllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means “in the Lotus,” and MANI is any precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical meaning, are really correctly rendered. In this sentence -- the most sacred of all eastern formulas -- not only has each syllable its secret potential power producing a definite result, but the whole has seven different meanings and can produce seven different results, each of which may differ from the others. The seven meanings and the seven results
depend upon the intonation that is given to the whole formula and to
each of the syllables; and even the numerical value of the letters is
added to or diminished according as such or an-other rhythm is made use
of. Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of every element and its sub-elements, learn their action and inter-action and behavior on the occult side of manifesting nature, and the law of correspondences will lead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life. But to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical; i.e., you must study MAN, the microcosm -- in this case as physical science does -- inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals. At the same time, however, since a keynote is required to analyze and comprehend any combinations of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the Platonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends from the Universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in Mathematics -- the only exact science that exists in our day. Let us study man, therefore; but if we separate him for, one moment from the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart from the “Heavenly Man” the Universe symbolized by Adam Kadmon or his equivalents in every philosophy, -- we shall either land in black magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt. Thus the mystic sentence, “OM MANI PADME HUM” when rightly understood, instead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, “O the Jewel in the Lotus,” contains a reference to the indissoluble union between man and the Universe, rendered in seven different ways and having the capability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought and action. From whatever aspect we examine “it”, it means “I am that I am” “I am in thee and thou art in me.” In this conjunction and close union the good and pure man becomes a god. Whether consciously or unconsciously he will bring about, or innocently cause to happen, unavoidable results. In the first case if an Initiate - of course an Adept of the right-hand Path alone is meant - he can guide a beneficent or protecting current, and thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations. In the second case, although unaware of what he was doing, the good man becomes a shield to whomsoever he is with. Such is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can be done only when the actual potency and presence in sounds, and hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear. The formula, “OM MANI PADME HUM” has been chosen as an illustration on account of its almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and of its potentiality when pronounced by man. Be careful, all you who read this: do not use these words in vain, or when vain anger, lest you become yourself the first sacrificial victim, or what is worse, endanger those whom you love. The profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell you flippantly and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this sentence is the most powerful six-syllabled incantation and is said to have been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapani, the Tibetan Chenresi. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II, pp. 178 and 179.)
The Supreme Buddha, or Amitabha, they say, at the hour of the creation of man caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray emitted a sound and became Padmapani Bidhisattva. Then the Deity allowed to stream from his left eye a blue ray of light which, becoming incarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the minds of living beings. Amitabha then called the combination, which forthwith took up its abode in man, “OM MANI PADME HUM” (‘`I am the Jewel in the Lotus and in it I will remain.”) Then Padmapani, “the one in the Lotus”, vowed never, to cease working until he had made humanity feel his presence in itself and thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. He vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that in case of failure, he wished that his head would split into numberless fragments. The Kalpa closed; but humanity felt him not within his cold, evil heart. Then Padmapani's head split and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re-formed the pieces into ten heads, three white, and seven of various colors. And since that day man has become a perfect number or TEN. In this allegory the potency of Sound, Color, and Number is so ingeniously introduced as to veil the real esoteric meaning. To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy tales of creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and Divine, physical and magnetic meaning. From Amitabha - non-colors or the white glory - are born the seven differentiated colors of the prism. These each emit a corresponding sound, forming the seven of the musical scale. As Geometry among the Mathematical Sciences is especially related to cosmogony, so the ten Jods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetractys, being made to symbolize the Macrocosm, Microcosm, or man, its image, has also to be divided into ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen. But before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondence between the Macrocosm and Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of explanation are necessary. To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object: (a) of proving man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature, and (b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential Powers as exist: in the creative forces in Nature, - to such an one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between Colors, Sounds, and Numbers is the first requisite. As already said, the secret formula of the far East, “OM MANI PADME HUM” is the one best calculated to make these correspondential qualities and functions clear to the learner. Let those, I say again, who feel themselves too much the children of our age to approach the many mysteries which have to be revealed, in a truly reverent spirit, even though references be made to such subjects and objects as seem improper and, to use the correct term, indecent, in our modern day - let him abandon these teachings at once. For I shall have to use terms and refer, especially in the beginning, to the most secret organs and functions of the human body, the bare mention of which, is certain to provoke either feelings of disgust and shame or an irreverent laugh. It is such feelings which have invariably led the generations of writers on symbolism and religions, ever since the day of Kircher, to materialize every natural emblem and ideograph, in their impure thought and finally to sum up all religions, Christian included, as phallic worship. It is quite true that ever since the days of Pythagoras and Plato the exoteric cults began to deteriorate, until they debased the symbolism into the most shameful practices of our worship. Hence the horror and contempt, with which every true Occultist regards the so-called “personal God” and the exoteric ritualistic worship of the Churches - be they heathen or Christian. And even in the days of Plato it was so. It was the persecution of the true ierophants and the final suppression of those mysteries which alone purified man's thoughts, and led to Tantrike (sexual worship) and through the for-getting of Divine Truth, to Black Magic, whether conscious or otherwise. Dozens and hundreds of works have been written upon the subject, especially in the latter part of our century. Every student can read for himself such works as those by Payne Knight, Higgins, Furlong, Inman, and finally Hargrave Jennings' Pallicism and Allen Campbell's Phallic Worship. All are based on truth with regard to the facts given; all are erroneous and unjust in their fundamental conclusions and deductions. To say, as the last-named does, "as the ancients did not conceive of an infinite divine being they naturally thought of a number of gods," is as untrue historically as it is misleading. It is because the ancients conceived, too well of an infinite Sat, BE-NESS -- philosophically and logically there can be no such creature as an "infinite" being, no more than a "personal" Absolute, -- that they anthropomorphized every force in Nature, which, if intelligent, must be a being higher than terrestrial man, or lower, as the case may be -- a thinking something in any case. The above words are addressed to students in order that - knowing how bitter some Occultists feel both the carnalizing Churches and materialistic thinkers who see phallicism in every symbol -- they should not at the outset jump to the conclusion that, after all, the Occult Sciences likewise are based on nothing but a sexual foundation. Man and woman in their physical aspects and corporeal envelopes are but higher animals, and the various parts of their bodies, if studied at all, must be referred to in terms comprehensible to the student. But the idea of the unclean acts with which some of these organs are connected, in their present conception of humanity, does not militate against the fact that each organ has been evolved and developed to perform its sex functions on six different planes of action, besides its seventh, the lowest and purely terrestrial function on the physical plane. This will suffice as an introduction to what follows. In the allegory of Padmapani, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus, or the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10 as synthesizing the Unit, Man, are prominent, as I have already said. It is on the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and with their mutual correspondence with sound or (words) and colors or rates of motion (represented in science by vibrations) that the progress of a student in OCCULTISM depends. Therefore we must begin by the first, incipient word, Om, or Aum. Om is a blind. The sentence The sentence “Om Mani Padme Hum” is not a six but a seven-syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is double in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A-um, it represents: The forever-concealed primeval triune differentiation, not from but IN the ONE Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or the Tetractys in the physical world. It is the Unity-ray, or Atman. It is Atman, the highest spirit in man, which, in conjunction with Buddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This Triad with its four lower human principles is, moreover, enveloped with an auric atmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future Embryo) by the albumen and shell. This, to the perceptions of the higher beings from other planes, makes of each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy. To show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of Kosmos, a World, a planetary Being, or a child of sin and earth, a more definite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with philosophy will understand it better than others. Who, having read, say the Vishnu or other Purana, is not familiar with the exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahma (male-female) in the egg of the world, Hyranyagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes, which in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the number seven and fourteen reappearing as occasion requires. Without giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time immemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix, to the female uterus. It is written of the former: “Its womb is as vast as the Meru,” and “the future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its cavities, the continents, seas, and the mountains, the stars, planets, the gods, demons and mankind.” The whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoa-nut filled interiorly with pulp, and covered exteriorly with husk and rind. “Vast as Meru,” say the texts. “Meru was its amnion, and the other mountain was its Chorion,” adds a verse in Vishnu Purana, book I, ch. 2. In the sane way is a man born in his mother's womb. As Brahma is surrounded, in exoteric traditions, by seven layers, within and seven layers without the mundane egg, so is the embryo - the first or the seventh layer, according to the end from which we begin to count. Just as Esotericism in this cosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology notes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely ignorant of its being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix. These are: 1. Embryo. 2. Amniotic Fluid, immediately surrounding the Embryo. 3. Amnion, a membrane derived from the Foetus, which contains the fluid. 4. Umbilical Vesical, which serves to convey nourishment originally to the Embryo and to nourish it. 5. Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo in the form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the midst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves to conduct nourishment to the Embryo. 6. Interspace between 3 and 7, (the Amnion and Chorian), filled with an albuminous fluid. 7. The outer layer, or Chorion. Now every one of these seven contents correspond with, and is formed from, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being -- with which correspond in their turn the seven states of matter and every other force, sensational or functional, in Nature. The following is a bird's-eye view of the seven correspondential contents of the wombs of Nature and of mortal woman. We may contrast them thus:
Even in the evolution of the races we see the same order as in nature and man. (vide Secret Doctrine, vol. II.) Placental Animal-man become such only after the separation of the sexes in the Third Root race. In the physical-evolution, the placenta is fully formed and functional only after the 3rd month of uterine life. Let us set aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the purely Divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless nature. It is called by its Sanskrit esoteric name in the Vedas, TAT (or THAT); a term for unknowable Rootless Root. If we do so, we may answer these seven questions of the Esoteric Catechism, thus: (1) Q. - What is the External Absolute? A. - THAT. (2) Q . - How came Kosmos into being? A. - Through THAT. (3) Q. - How or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya? A. - In THAT. (4) Q . - Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the inanimate in nature? A. - From THAT. (5) Q. - What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is formed? A. - THAT. (6) Q. - Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved? A. - Into THAT. (7) Q. - Is that then both the instrumental and material cause of the Universe? A. - What else is it or can be than THAT. As the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, are ten, why should we divide Man into seven “principles?” This is the reason -- one which cannot be given out publicly -- why the perfect number ten is divided into two. In its completeness, i.e., super-spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN, to wit: three on the subject and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in mind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles: (a) the primordial triangle, which as soon as it has reflected itself in the “Heavenly Man,” the highest of the lower seven––disappears, returning into “Silence and Darkness”; and (b) the astral paradigmatic man, whose Monad (Atman) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to become a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. The purely terrestrial man being reflected in the universe of matter, so to say, upside-down, the upper triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the subjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides, is shifted in the man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten, containing in the archetypal world only ideative and paradigmatic potentiality, i.e., existing in possibility, not in action, are in fact one. The potency of formative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven Forces or Rays, which becomes forthwith the Quaternary, the sacred Tetraktys. This process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical Triangle becomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male female creator or generator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery above, a mystery below, truly. This is how the upper and highest, and the lower and most animal, stand in mutual relation.
DOUBLE-PAGE DIAGRAM. In this diagram we see that physical man (or his body) does not share in the direct pure wave of the divine Essence which flows from the One in Three, the Unmanifested, through the Manifested Logos (the upper face in the diagram). Purusha, the primeval Spirit, touches the human head and stops there. But the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles) is directly connected with it. And here a few words ought to be said about the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. As those not pledged could hardly be entrusted with the whole truth, an approximate division only was made and given out. Esoteric Buddhism begins with Âtman, the seventh, and ends with the Physical Body, the first. Now, neither Âtman, which is no individual “principle” but a radiation from and one with the Unmanifested Logos; nor the body, which is the material rind or shell of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as “principles.” Moreover the chief “principle” of all, one not even mentioned heretofore, is the “Luminous Egg” (Hiranyagarbha) or the invisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped. [1] It is the direct emanation: (a) from the Âtmic Ray in its triple aspect of Creator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and (b) from Buddhi-Manas. The seventh aspect of this individual aura is the faculty of assuming the form of its body and becoming the “Radiant,” the Luminous Augoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form called Mâyâvi-Rűpa. Therefore as explained in the second face of the diagram (the astral man), the Spiritual Man consists of only five principles, as taught by the Vedântins, who substitute tacitly for the physical this sixth, or Auric Body, and merge the dual Manas (the dual mind or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of five kośas (sheaths or principles), and call Âtman the sixth yet no “principle.” This is the secret of the late Subba Row’s criticism of the division in Esoteric Buddhism. He knew well our difficulty, and had accepted our exoteric enumeration at one time, but took advantage of my pledge of secrecy and the impossibility I was in to defend myself publicly before the profane world. (Vide. Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 157, for the Vedantic exoteric enumeration.) But let the student now learn the true esoteric enumeration. It was not given to Mr. A.P. Sinnett, who would never pledge himself, and was known to contemplate from the first giving out his information to the public. Therefore the division of the "principles" is given in Esoteric Buddhism exoterically.
COLORED DIAGRAM. In the above diagram, we see that ATMA is no "principle," but stands separate from the Man, whose seven "principles" are represented as follows: 7th Principle ... The Auric Egg,
colored blue. The reason why it is not permitted to speak of the Auric body is because it is so sacred. It is this which, at death, conveys, by assimilating the, the spiritual principles, or essence of Buddhi and Manas, which are not objective, and then, with the full radiation of Atma upon itself, it ascends as Manas-Taijasi into the Devachanic state. Therefore is it called by many names. It is the Sutratma, the silver thread which "incarnates" (follows, rather) from the beginning of Manvantara to the end, threading upon itself the pearls of human existence, i.e., the spiritual aroma of every personality it follows through the pilgrimage of life. (Vide Lucifer, Jan. 1889, "Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After-Life.") It is also the material from which the Adept forms his astral bodies, from the Augoeides and the Mayavi-Rupa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal particles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi and the Upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of Ătmâ, the Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness, or, in the case of a full Adept, prefers the state of a Nirmânakâya, that is, one who has so purified his whole system that he is above even the divine illusion of a Devachanee. Such an Adept remains in the astral (invisible) plane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the possession of all his principles except the Kâma Rűpa and Physical Body. In the case, alter ego within the body -- as the radiant aura was without it -- the Linga Sarira, strengthened by the material particles of the aura which it leaves behind, remains near and outside the death body, and soon fades out. In the second case, the body alone becomes subject to dissolution, while the center of that force which was the seat of desires and passions disappears, of course, with its cause -- the animal body. But during the life of the latter all these centers are more or less active and in constant correspondence with their prototypes -- the cosmic centers -- and the microcosms of these -- the principles. It is only through these cosmic and spiritual, that the physical centers (the seven openings of the upper, and the triad of the lower body) can benefit by their occult interaction. It is these orifices, or openings, that are the channels conducting into the body the influences that the will of man attracts and benefits by, i.e., the cosmic forces; although that will has to act primarily through the spiritual principles. To make this clearer: In order to stop pain in the physical eye -- say the right one -- one has to attract to it the potent magnetism from that cosmic principle which corresponds to that eye, as also in Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will effort, an imaginary line of communication between Buddhi -- locating it as a center in the same portion of the head -- and the right eye. That line though we may call it "imaginary," is in reality as good as real, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental eye and give it a shape and color. A rope in a dream is not and yet is. Besides which, according to the prismatic color you endow your line with, so will the influence act. Buddhi and Mercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow, or radiant and golden colored. In the human system, the right eye corresponds with Buddhi and Mercury; and Manas with the left and Venus, or Lucifer. Thus, if your line is golden or silvery, it will stop the pain: if red, it will increase it -- as red is the color of Kama and corresponds with Mars. Mental or Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the effects without understanding the causes. They have found by chance the secret of producing such results owing to mental abstraction, and they attribute them to their union with God (whether a personal or impersonal God they know best), whereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it may be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain wandering for a long time yet. Let not the students of the E. S. commit the same mistake. It has often been explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human principles could be located or thought of as anything, within Space and Time -- except our body and the lowest physical plane or world, which, as said, are no "principles." As the former are seven in ONE, so we are seven in one -- the same Absolute Soul of the World, which is both matter and non-matter, Spirit and Non-Spirit, Being and Non-Being. Impress yourselves well with this idea; all those of you who would study the mysteries of SELF. Remember that with our physical senses alone at our command none of us can hope to see beyond gross matter. We can do so only through one or another of our seven spiritual senses, if these are trained, or if one is a born seer. Even with this capacity and when seeing in the astral light, unless one is an Adept, ignorance of the whole truth can only lead the most honest and sincere clairvoyant (as witness Swedenborg and several others) to mistake the denizens of such spheres, of which he may occasionally get a glimpse, for God or Angels. These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in Nature and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human auric envelope (the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers, just as our physical epidermis and as Cosmic Space have. It is this aura which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity, either opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything but the three dimensional world of matter. Each of our seven physical senses (though two remain unknown to Science), as also our seven states of consciousness -- i.e., (1) the waking; (2) the waking-dreaming; (3) the natural sleeping; (4) the induced or trance-sleep; (5) the psychic; (6) the super-psychic, or siderial; and (7) the purely spiritual state of consciousness,-- corresponds with one of the seven cosmic planes, developes and uses one of the seven supersenses, is connected directly with the cosmic and divine center of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator, in its use on the terrestro- spiritual plane. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven sacred planets. These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were called Mystes (the veiled), who indeed were allowed to see things only as through a mist; while the Initiates of the Greater Mysteries were the Epoptai (those who see things unveiled.) It was the latter only who were taught the true mysteries of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between the twelve signs (two secret) of the Zodiac and the ten human orifices. [2] The difficulty which some students will experience in reading this can be easily explained. For the first difficulty, vide infra note: magic is coeval with the Third Root Race, which began creating through Kriyasakti and ended by generating its species in the present way (vide Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 207 et seq.) As it is woman who was left with the full or perfect cosmic number ten (the divine number of Jehovah), she was deemed higher and more spiritual than man. In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an article that the woman should be the "lady of the Lord" and real lord over him, the husband pledging himself to be "obedient to his wife" for the production of alchemical results such as the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, the spiritual help of the woman being needed by the male alchemist. But woe to the alchemist who should take this in the dead-letter sense of physical union, as this would become black magic and be followed by certain failure. The true alchemist of old took aged women to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones; and if some of them happened to be married they treated their wives for months before and during their operations as sisters. As for the Zodiacal signs, of which the ancients are credited with having known but ten, the error is explained in Isis Unveiled, vol. II, pp. 456, 465 et seq. The ancients did know of them, but viewed these signs differently to what we do. They never took singly into consideration either Virgo or Scorpio, but regarded them as two in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the primeval dual man and his separation into sexes. During the reformation of the Zodiac, Libra was added as the twelfth sign, though it is simply an equilibrating sign, at the intersection -- the mystery of separated man. (Vide Isis, vol. II, p. 461.) Let the student learn all this well. Meanwhile we have to recapitulate what was said. (1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God, in other words, one with his "Father in Heaven," just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say. So many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven, and yet these Gods are in reality ONE, for at the end of every period of activity, like the rays of the setting sun they are withdrawn into the Parent Luminary, the Non-Manifested Logos, who in his turn is merged in the One Absolute. Shall we call these "Fathers" of ours, whether individually or collectively, and under any circumstances, our personal God? Occultism answers, Never. All that an average man can know of his "Father" is what he knows of, through and within himself. The soul of his "Heavenly Father" is incarnated in him; this soul is himself, if he is successful in assimilating the divine individuality while in his physical, animal shell. As to the spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our prayers and supplications are vain, unless we add potential acts to potential words, and make the aura which surrounds each of us so pure and divine as to permit the God in us to act outwardly, i.e., to become like an extraneous Potency. Thus Initiates, Saints and very holy and pure men could help others as well as themselves in an hour of need, and could produce what are foolishly called "miracles," each by and with the help of the God within himself, whom he alone enabled to act on the outward plane. (2) The word AUM, or OM, which corresponds to the upper triangle, pronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out, or awaken, not only the less exalted potencies residing in the planetary spaces, and elements, but even his Highest Self, or the "Father" within him. Pronounced by an averagely good man in the correct way, it will help to strengthen him morally, especially if between two "Aums" he meditates intensely upon the "AUM" within him, concentrating all his attention upon the ineffable glory. But woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far-reaching sin: he will only attract thereby to his own impure photosphere invisible presences and forces which could not otherwise break through the divine envelope. All the members of the Esoteric Section are invited to pronounce -- if earnest in their endeavor to learn -- the divine word before going to sleep and the first thing upon awakening, Brother Judge, of New York, has the right accent and he can impart it to those in the United States. Aum is the origin of Amen. Now Amen is not a Hebrew word, but, like the word Halleluiah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees. The latter term is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninivean relics. (See in the British Museum.) Amen does not mean "so be it," or simply "verily," but meant in hoary antiquity almost all that the word Aum means. The Jewish Tanaim (Initiates) used it for the same reason and with a like success: the numerical value of AMeN in Hebrew letters being 91, the same as the full value of YHVH [3] 26, and ADoNaY, 65, or 91. Both words mean the affirmation of being, or existence, and of the sexless "Lord" within us. (3) Esoteric Science teaches that every sound in the visible world awakens its corresponding sound in the invisible realms, and arouses to action some force or another on the occult side of nature. Moreover, every sound corresponds to a color and a number, a potency spiritual, psychic or physical, and to a sensation on some plane. All these find an echo in every one of the so-far developed elements, even on the terrestrial plane, in the Lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting them to action. Thus a prayer, unless pronounced mentally and addressed to one's "Father" in the silence and solitude of one's "closet," must have, in view of the ignorance by the masses of the effects which they produce, more frequently disastrous than beneficial results. To produce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by "one who knows how to make himself heard in silence," when it is no longer a prayer but a command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden going to the public synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a liar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be seen praying by people. He had a motive, we must suppose: the same motive which prompts the experienced Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as then, from entering churches, seance-rooms, etc., unless one is in sympathy with the crowd. There is one piece of advice to be given to beginners, who cannot help going into crowds -- one which may appear superstitious, but which in the absence of occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well known to good astrologers, the days of the week, though they bear the names of the planets and sun and moon, are not in the order of those planets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the protection, (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and that every day, as correctly asserted by Dion Cassius, received the name of that planet which ruled and protected its first portion. Let the student protect himself from the "Powers of the Air" (Elementals) which throng public places by wearing either a ring, some jewel of the color of the presiding planet, or else some metal sacred to it. But the best protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire of benefiting Humanity. Let me close this first instruction to those who have honored
me with their confidence by taking the pledge, with a
few words addressed to them. They must in all necessity be
separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite
ridden themselves from the usual skeptical doubts, but who
long to ascertain how much truth there may be in the claims
of the Occultists; and those others who, having freed themselves
from the trammels of materialism and relativity, feel
that true and real bliss must be sought only in the knowledge
and personal experience of that which the Hindu philosopher
calls the Brahmavidya, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of Adibudha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former
pick out and study from the instructions received only those
explanations of the phenomena of life which profane science
is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they
will find by the end of a year or two that they will have
learned more than all their Universities and Colleges can
teach them. As to the sincere believers, they will be rewarded
by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot
be acquired in any other way except through the region of
the higher mind, the only plane from which we can reach
into the depths of the all-pervading Absoluteness. He who
carries out only the laws established by human minds, who
lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortal and
fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which
shines on the ocean of Maya, or of temporary delusions, and
that lasts but for one incarnation. These laws are necessary
for the life and welfare of the physical man alone. He has
chosen a pilot who directs him through the shoals of one existence,
a Master who parts with him, however, on the
threshold of death. How much happier that man who, while
strictly performing on the objective, temporary plane the
duties of daily life, carrying out each and every law of his
country -- and giving, in short, to Caesar what is Caesar's --
leads in reality a spiritual, therefore permanent existence, a life with
no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes, not
even during those periods which are the termini of the long
pilgrimages of purely spiritual life, called "post-mortem"
states. All the phenomena of the human (lower) mind disappear
like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing us to live
in the region behind it, the plane of the Noumenal, the one
true. If man but succeeds in suppressing, if not destroying, his
selfishness and personality, to know himself as he is behind
the veil of physical Maya, he will soon stand beyond all
pain, all misery, as beyond all the wear and tear of change,
which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be
physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter,
yet live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to
change, but he himself be entirely without it, will experience
everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of short duration.
All this may be achieved by the development of unselfish,
universal love for Humanity and the suppression of
personality, or selfishness -- the cause of all sin, as of all human
sorrow. H. P. B.
AUM. _______________ Notes: 1. So are the animals, the plants and even the minerals. Reichenbach never understood what he learned through his sensitives and clairvoyants. It is the odic or rather the auric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more. Of the animal, mineral and vegetable auras I will treat later. 2. The latter are, of course ten in the female alone now, and nine only in the male; but this is only external. In the second volume of the Secret Doctrine it is stated that till the end of the Third Root Race (when androgynous man separated into male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first potentially, then functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows it. The only opening first formed is the buccal cavity, "a cloaca communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestine." This becomes later the mouth and the back opening: the Logos differentiating and emanating gross matter on the lower plane, in occult parlance. 3. Jod-Hevah, or male-female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in reality and literally, "giving being" and "receiving life." ***
TABULAR DIAGRAM.
APPENDIX. The Planets, the Days of the Week, and Their Corresponding Colors and Metals. In the accompanying diagram the days of the week do not stand in their usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as determined by the order of the colors in the solar spectrum and the corresponding colors of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians. While adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they tried to blend them with the solar planets, and made a mess of it; for the order of the days of the week as they now stand does not follow the order of the planets. Now the ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the protection and ruling of a planet. Each day came after a time to be called by the name of that planet which ruled its first portion -- the morning. Now, when the Christians arranged their week, they proceeded thus: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the seventh, so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn, e. g., beginning with the Moon (Monday) they counted thus: Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun -- Mars; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was ruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. Moreover, the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret planet. The word week was in Latin septimam, signifying "measure of time," because composed of seven mornings (from septem and matinam), or seven diurnal Suns. Also the present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the beginning of our era: and our week is not that of the ancients and the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar phases is as old as the world, and was begun by the people who counted by the lunar months. The Hebrews never had it nor used it, for they counted only the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it. Till the days of the Caesars there is no trace of a week of seven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of eight days, and the Athenian of ten. (Vide Notice Sur le Calendrier, par. J. H. Ragon.) It is one of the numberless contradictions and fallacies of Christendom to have adopted the Indian septenary week of the lunar calculation and to have preserved at the same time the mythological names of the planets. Neither do the modern Astrologers give the days and planets
with their corresponding colors correctly; and while the
Occultists can give good reason for every detail of their arrangement;
colors, etc., it is doubtful whether the moderns can do the same. H. P.
B. *** H.P. BLAVATSKY ON THE ESOTERIC SECTION "... I have no authority whatever in the Society excepting over the Esoteric Section which is entirely independent of Adyar (see rule in Jan --- Theosophist) .... As the new Adyar Rules stand, I have no power nor authority, neither would I accept it did they want to give it me, for most probably I will never go back to India. I will stop here & fight for Theosophy in Europe & America till I drop dead. With every day I have greater & greater numbers of real esotericists ... who join the Section of which I am the supreme head. And when several hundreds of honourable men will have learnt what I know & what I can teach, then I will be vindicated in the eyes of posterity, & Theosophy will be carried onward by them even when I am dead. I take no money, I have no benefits or worldly gains by this teaching ...." H.P. Blavatsky *** E.S.T.S. DOCUMENT SIGNED BY BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY The Esoteric section of the Theosophical Society. It has become necessary that the attention of all members of this section should be called to the first sentence in the second clause of the Pledge which they have taken, and which runs as follows: "I pledge myself to support, before the world, the Theosophical movement, its leaders and its members;" The first necessity of the Esoteric Section as a body is the existence of a strong feeling of mutual solidarity among its members, and a deep conviction that it is their duty not to sit passive waiting to be taught, but on the contrary to do all that lies in their power to assist the cause of Theosophy, and in one respect especially the members of this Section have neglected their duty and drawn down upon themselves severe reproof from the "Teachers". This neglect of their duty, amounting in many cases to a breach of the Pledge, lies in the fact that they have permitted attacks on the Society, on its Founders, and worse than all, disparaging remarks about the Sacred Science and Philosophy, to be made in various Newspapers without protest of any kind. It is true that letters from one or two individuals only, would produce but little effect on the minds of Editors. But if every member of the Esoteric Section made it his duty, a duty never to be omitted to write and protest vigorously against such attacks whenever and wherever made, the persistent action of a large body like this Section, backed as it would be by support on a higher plane, would relieve, at all events, the Members from the stigma of not acting up to their pledged word. This applies with special force in the case of the Spiritualistic Journals, which cannot deny a priori either the philosophical basis or the phenomenal evidence of Theosophy, but which are nevertheless among the most frequent assailants of the Society and its leaders, as witness the Religio-Philosophical Journal in America and the Medium and Daybreak in England? Now the former would hardly venture to publish such scurrilous attacks on Theosophy as those of W.E. Coleman, if the members of the E.S. in America with one accord wrote and protested, and, if their protest remained unheeded, ceased subscribing to the paper, and induced as many of their friends as possible to follow their example--- writing at the same time to the Editor to state their reasons for so doing. Nor in England would the Medium and Daybreak think of publishing such paragraphs as those which have many times appeared therein, the latest one concluding with these words: "The 'Mahatmas' are simply 'spirit-guides', and their work has been far outdistanced by what has been done in Spiritualism," if the Editor found that such statements cost him subscribers, as well as bringing down on him a shower of protests. It is the spirit of thorough solidarity alone which can make the Esoteric Section a power in the world on the side of Theosophy, and it is only by making it such a powerful agent for the work of the Masters that the members of the Section can expect to deserve teaching, guidance and help, at the hands of those Servants of Humanity. Yours Fraternally, *** H.P. BLAVATSKY ON THE ESOTERIC SECTION "As many of you are aware, we have formed the 'Esoteric Section'. Its members are pledged, among other things, to work for Theosophy under my direction. By it, for one thing, we have endeavored to secure some solidarity in our common work: to form a strong body of resistance against attempts to injure us on the part of the outside world, against prejudice against the Theosophical Society and against me personally. By its means much may be done to nullify the damage to the work of the Society in the past and to vastly further its work in the future. "Its name, however, I would willingly change. The Boston scandals have entirely discredited the name 'Esoteric'; but this is a matter for after consideration." H.P. Blavatsky Letter dated April 7, 1889. Read by William Q. Judge on April 28, 1889 to the Third Annual Convention of the American Section of the Theosophical Society *** H.P. BLAVATSKY ON THE ESOTERIC SECTION "... Every month I write from forty to fifty pages of 'Esoteric Instructions,' instructions in secret sciences, which must not be printed. Five or six wretched voluntary martyrs among my esotericists have to draw, write and lithograph during the nights, some 320 copies of them, which I have to superintend, to rectify, to compare and to correct, so that there may be no mistakes and my occult information may not be put to shame. Just think of that! White-haired, trained Cabalists and sworn Free-Masons take lessons from me ...." H.P. Blavatsky *** H.P. BLAVATSKY ON THE ESOTERIC SECTION "... I [have] over 450 pledged Esotericists in America alone ....The Esoteric Instructions I give are plain, sound occultism .... These instructions ... are genuine, bonafide occult knowledge of Eastern Science, which I alone can give. None of the Members pay one penny except postage, & many of them not even that .... to certain devoted disciples here it cost hundreds of pounds a year to prepare all these hand-done MSS. instructions ....." B.P. Blavatsky *** E.S. INSTRUCTIONS NO. II BY H.P. BLAVATSKY (FACSIMILE OF 1890 ARYAN PRESS EDITION) INSTRUCTIONS NO. II. March and April, 1889. Strictly Private and Confidential. [NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON DEMAND TO THE HEAD OF THE SECTION OR TO WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, P.O. BOX 2659, NEW YORK, N.Y.] E. S. T. S. -- No. II. Instruction for March and April, 1889 IT seems useful, in view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, that we should premise by explaining some points which remained obscure in the instruction for January and February, as well as some statements in which there was an appearance of contradiction. Astrologers, we hear, -- and we have many among the Esotericists -- are likely to be puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings; whilst those who know nothing of Esoteric Astrology may perhaps find themselves opposed at the outset by some of their friends who have studied the exoteric systems of the Kabala and Astrology. For, let it be distinctly known, nothing of that which is printed broadcast, i. e.; available to every student in public libraries or even museums, is really esoteric, but is either mixed with deliberate blinds, or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete glossary of the occult terms and their equivalents. The following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the student in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the instruction for January and February. In the first place we may have to speak of the diagrams which accompanied the first instruction, and which for the sake of brevity may be referred to as: (1) the Double-Page Diagram=D. P.; (2) the Colored Diagram=C.; (3) the Tabular Diagram=T. First. in regard to the Double-Page Diagram, it will be observed that centers 3, 7and 10 therein treated are respectively as follows: (a) The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute, and therefore to the three higher principles in Man. (b) The 7 belong to the spiritual, psychic and physical world and to the body of man. Physics, metaphysics and hyperphysics are the triad that symbolizes man on this plane. (c) The sum-total of this, or the 10, is the Universe as a whole, in all its aspects, and also its Microcosm -- Man, with his ten orifices. Therefore, laying aside. for the moment, the Higher Decade (Kosmos) and the Lower Decade (Man) -- this comes to saying that the three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the Human Being; as much as to the Higher, Supersensual World. The lower four, or the four aspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole being synthesized by the Absolute. If these three discrete or distributive degrees of being be conceived as symbolized and comprehended in all the Eastern religions in one Ovum, or EGG, the name of that EGG will be Swabhavat, or the ALL-BEING on the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither center nor periphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a definition, in consequence naturally of the limitations of human thought. With regard to the Tabular Diagram, as remarked in its right-hand corner, no notice need be taken of any numbers used in the left-hand column, as these numbers refer only to the Hierarchies of the Colors and Sounds on the Metaphysical plane, and are not the characteristic numbers of the human principles or of the planets. The human principles elude enumeration, because every man differs from another, just as there are no two leaves or blades of grass on the whole earth absolutely alike. Numbering here is a question of spiritual progress and of the natural predominance of one "principle" over another. With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, the Lower Manas -- if the man be a bestial sensualist. With one the physical body, or perhaps Prana, the life principle (in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality), will be on the first and highest plane; with another it may come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colors and metals, as will be observed, corresponding to the planets and human principles, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and Western Occultists. As an instance, and in order to show whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the correspondence of planets, metals and colors. The modern Orientalist, judging on appearances, credits the ancient Akkadians (also the Chaldeans, Hindus and Egyptians) with the crude notion that our Universe (and the earth likewise) was like an inverted, round, bell-shaped bowl! This he demonstrates by pointing to the Akkadian representations of some symbolical inscriptions and to the Assyrian carvings. It is no place here to explain how mistaken is the Assyriologist, for all such representations are simply symbolical of the Khargak-kurra, the "World-Mountain," or Meru, and relate only to the North Pole, the land of the Gods. (Vide Secret Doctrine, vol. III p. 357, and vol. 1, p. 127 et seq.) But this is how the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching about the planets and their correspondences:
This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, as will be shown, -- save in the case of the days of the week, of which order they have, by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, made a sore mess. (Vide Instructions No. I.) It is the Ptolemaic system in which the Concentric Diagram that represents the Universe shows our Earth in the center of the Universe and the Sun as a planet -- the fourth in number. Thus:
The Heaven of the Moon And if the Christian religion is being daily denounced as based on an entirely wrong astronomical foundation, as regards its week and chronology, it is high time to begin a reform in Astrology built on these lines, which comes to us entirely, too, from the Chaldean and Assyrian exoteric mob. But the correspondences given in our instructions are purely esoteric. For this reason it follows that when the planets of the solar system are named or symbolized (as in the Tabular Diagram) the planetary bodies themselves must not be taken as being referred to, except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can only correspond to a material something. Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye, it does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man derives his spiritual soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Manasa-Putra, the "Sons of Wisdom," who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and presiding over the Planet Mercury. In the same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as correspondences. Exoterically there is, in reality, no such association of the right eye with Mercury or of the left with Venus, as physical eyes and physical planets. But esoterically there is a good deal; for, as just said, the right eye is the "Eye of Wisdom," i.e., it corresponds magnetically with that occult center in the brain which we call "the Third Eye" (see Secret Doctrine, vol. II, p. 288 et seq.); while the left eye corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty. The Kabalistic triangle of Kether, Chocmah and Binah shows this. Chocmah and Binah, or Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and the Mother, or, again, the Father and Son, are on the same plane and react mutually on one another. When the individual consciousness is turned inward, a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated man this conjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, and the Soul (in our case the Spirit -- not to be confounded with Atma, the Meta-spirit) is there said to have the "single eye." Esoterically, in other words, the "third eye" is active. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II.) Now since Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, their conjunction in man on the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely spiritual man is, however, entirely disconnected from sex. The latter corresponds directly with the higher "colored circles," the divine prism which emanates from the One Infinite White Circle; the former, or physical man, from the Sephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern philosophy. And these "Voices" are lower than the "Colors," for they are the seven lower Sephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the Zohar (11, 81, 6) shows, as also even the Old Testament. For, when properly translated, verse 18 of chapter XX Exodus would read: "And the people saw the Voices," (or Sounds, not the "thunderings," as now translated); and these Voices or Sounds are the Sephiroth. (See Franck's La Kabbala, p. 314 et seq.) In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the "Breath of Lives" (Genesis 11, 7) are here said to correspond with the Sun and Moon, as Brahma-Prajapati and Vach, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quaternary constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian-Angels of the four corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern esoteric philosophy, but with the following explanations. The Sun and the Moon -- being, one (the Sun) not a planet, but the central star of our system; and the other (the Moon) a dead planet, from which all the principles are gone, -- both stand as substitutes: the one for an invisible trans- mercurial planet still nearer to the Sun, and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. They are the four Maharajahs of the Secret Doctrine (vol I, p. 122), the "Four Holy Ones" connected with Karma and Humanity, Kosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, (or its substitute), Michael; Moon, (or substitute), Gabriel; Mercury, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel; and it need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves, being but the physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric Doctrine, but, as a rule, their Cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual forces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven physical planets which are the lower Sephiroth of the Kabala and our triple physical Sun, whose reflection only we see, which was symbolized, or rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown. All this will be demonstrated. [1] Then, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the psychic principles (second paragraph of the Double-Page Diagram) appear the reverse of those in the Colored Diagram. This again is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary, changing with every school. Some schools count three, some four, some six, and others seven, as all the Buddhist Esotericists do. In the Colored Diagram, the numbers of the principles disagree with the numbers used in the Double-Page Diagram, simply because the first are those hitherto used in the semi-exoteric teachings of Theosophy. (See Esoteric Buddhism.) As said in the Secret Doctrine (vol. I, p. 122), the Esoteric school has been divided since the fourteenth century into two departments, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chelas, the other for the outer circle, or lay Chelas. Mr. Sinnett was distinctly told in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he could not be taught the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged Disciples of the Inner Circle. Therefore, it would perhaps simplify matters if each student would add to the exoteric enumeration of the order in the Colored Diagram on his copy the secret one as given in the Tabular Diagram. But even that would require special study. The numbers and principles do not go, like the skins of an onion, in regular sequence, but the student must work out for himself the number appropriate to each of his principles when the time comes for him to enter upon practical study. The above will suggest to the student the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their appropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by association with their corresponding centers of action, colors, sounds, etc., until they become inseparable. The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles given in the Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism leads to another and apparently perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. In the Colored Diagram, it will be seen that the principles numbered 3 and 2, vis: Linga Sarira and Prana, or Jiva, stand in the reverse order to that given in the Double-Page Diagram. A moment's consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, as printed on the Colored Diagram, and the esoteric order given in the Double-Page Diagram. For in the Double-Page-Diagram Linga Sarira is defined as the vehicle of Prana, or Jiva, the life- principle, and as such must, on the esoteric plane, of necessity be inferior to Prana, not superior as the exoteric enumeration in the Colored Diagram would show. The colored part of the Diagram is profoundly esoteric, but the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration in the old order below it was used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one above another, and thus cannot be taken in numerical order, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of such or another principle, and they must therefore differ in every man. The Linga Sarira is, as the name denotes, the double, or protoplasmic antetype, of which the body it is united to is the image; and in this sense it is called in the Tabular Diagram the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by conception of Prana, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred Mythoi, it has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho-physical application. To close the subject, Prana, as life-principle, can bear, in sober truth, no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally applicable to Prana-Jiva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not through or by number, but geometrically, i.e., following the proportions of numbers. To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it would be useful if we set them down here after the manner of the Tabular Diagram, in relation to their dominion over the human body, color, metals and planets, etc., and explain at the same time the raison d'etre why in genuine esoteric philosophy they have to differ from the astrological claims. Say the Astrologers:
Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the exoteric Kabalistic Astrology is distributed by this method over the entire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of color from black to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as colors, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural colors of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to the Earth, and are only perceived by us men by virtue of the special construction of our physical organs. White is the absence of all colors; and therefore no color; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative aspect of white. The seven prismatic colors are direct emanations from the seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon and relation to one of the human principles, since each of these Hierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human principle. Each prismatic color is called in Occultism the "Father of the Sound" which corresponds to it; sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its Father-Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every color with a definite sound, -- a fact well recognized in modern science (e. g., Francis Galton's Nature and Nurture.) But black and white are entirely neutral colors, and have no representatives in the world of subjective beinghood. Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominions of the planetary bodies in the human brain is also defined thus: there are seven primary groups of faculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh through the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct esoterically. But when it is further said that: Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury, the intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun rules the governing faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon rules the instincts; -- we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading. For, in the first place, the physical planets can only rule the physical body and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual faculties are influenced by the occult properties of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in the Tabular Diagram, leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1) color; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., , the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into the physical metals; then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into (5) the plants, giving them color and smell, both of which "properties" depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; and finally (7) culminates in the "principles" of man. Thus we see the divine essence of our Progenitors in heaven circling through seven stages; spirit becoming matter, and matter returning to spirit. As there is sound in nature which is inaudible, so there is color which is invisible, but which one hears. The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces color, sound and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration; which vibrations compound and dissociate the atoms and molecules. Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the synthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is that which the Chinese call the "Great Tone," or Kung. It is, even on scientific confession, the actual tonic of nature, held by musicians to be the middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the voice of nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage of a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city; in the wind, the tempest and the storm: in short, in everything in nature which has a voice or produces sound. It culminates, to the hearing of all who hearken, into a single definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F, or Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, it will be evident to the student of Occultism wherein lies the difference between the exoteric and the esoteric nomenclature and symbolism. In short, Kabalistic Astrology, as now practiced in Europe, is the semi-esoteric secret science, adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle. It is, furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to conceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adopts its correspondences on the mere appearances of things. Esoteric philosophy, concerning itself preeminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols as cover the whole ground, i.e., such symbols as yield a spiritual as well as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has done excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the existence of a Secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of the Medieval Ages and dark bigotry up to this day, when all danger has disappeared. The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric radii, i. e., the distance of their several orbits from the Earth as a center, vis: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. In the first three of these we have symbolized the celestial triad of supreme power in the physical, manifested universe, or Brahma, Vishnu and Siva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass and elements. Thus:
But Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to precede further teachings in this direction with clearer explanations about the real value of the word Magic. *** What Magic Is, in Reality. Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and inseparableness, in divine magic, [2] from our divine Selves -- the latter meaning something else besides our own higher spirit. Thus, before proceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may be useful, perhaps, to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of that most misunderstood word "magic." Many are those willing and eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the science itself. As very few of the American and European students can derive benefit from Sanskrit works, or even their translations, -- all these translations being, for the most part, exoteric blinds to the uninitiated, -- I propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from Neo-Platonic works. These are accessible in translations; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus the Gnosis -- pre-Christian and post-Christian -- will serve our purpose admirably. There are millions of Christians who know about Simon Magus, but only the little that is told about him in the Acts; but very few who have even heard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is only to be found in the prejudiced, half-fantastic records about him in the works of the Church Fathers -- Irenaeus, Epiphanius, St. Justin, and especially in the Philosophomena. Yet he is an historical character, and the appellation of "Magus" was given to him and was accepted by all his contemporaries -- including the Heads of the Christian Church -- as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he possessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine) or a black (infernal) magician. In this respect, opinion was always made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of the writer. It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term "magic" meant for the Initiates in those days. Simon taught that our world was created by the lower angels, whom he called AEons, as all the other Gnostics did. He mentions only three degrees of such, because, as explained in the Secret Doctrine, he found it useless to teach anything about the four higher ones, and therefore begins at the plane of globes A and Z of the terrestrial chain. His system is nearer to occult truth than any, so that we must examine it, as well as his own and Menander's pretensions to magic, to find out what they meant by this term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all manifested creation was fire. It is, with him as with us, the Universal Principle, the infinite Potency, born from the concealed Potentiality. This fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was dual, i.e., had a manifested and a concealed or secret side. "The secret side of the fire is concealed in its evident or objective side, and the objective is under the secret side," he writes: which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of stating Plato's idea of the Intelligible and the Sensuous, and Aristotle's teaching on the Potency and the Act. For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained all. And thus all the portions of that fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, are susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these portions in their primordial emanation are our Dhyan Chohans, "the Sons of Flame and Fire," or higher AEons. This "Fire" is the symbol of the active and living side of divine Nature. Behind it lay infinite Potency, to which he (Simon) gave other names, e g., "That which is, was, and will be" -- or permanent Stability and personified Immutability. From the power of Thought, divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the Intelligent or objective side of Fire being the Mother, the secret side of it being the Father. Simon called his emanations Sysigies (a united pair, or couple), i.e., they emanated two by two, one as an active, the other as a passive AEon. When three couples had thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the Seventh) Simon gave them the following names: "Spirit and Thought" (Nous and Epinoia); "the Voice and the Name;" "Reason and Reflection;" the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six AEons of the middle world. Let us see what Simon says himself: "Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite Potency [of its parent]; but it was there only as Potency, and not as an Act. That Potency had to be called forth (or conformed) through an image in order that it should manifest in all its essence, virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated Potency become similar to its parent, the eternal and infinite Potency. If on the contrary, it failed to be conformed by, or through an 'image,' then the Potency would not pass into action, but would get lost:" in clearer terms, it would get atrophied, as the modern expression goes. (Philosophomena, lib. IV, No. 9, p. 250.) Now what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all to the Infinite Potency the AEons had to imitate it in its action, and themselves to become, in their turn, emanative principles, as their parent was; to give life to new beings and become potency in actu themselves? To produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyasakti (vide Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 293 et passim), is the direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own action. That power, then, is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial AEons, or even in the secondary emanations, by the very fact of their and our descent from the One Primordial Principle -- Infinite Power or Potency. Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six AEons, synthesized by the Seventh -- the Parent Potency -- passed into Act, and emanated, in their turn, six secondary AEons, which were each synthesized by their respective parent. In the Philosophomena we read: "'It is written,' said Simon in his . . . . . . . , 'that there are two kinds of AEons having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same Root -- the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality -- named Silence [Sige.] One of these [series of AEons] appears to us superior to the other. This one is the "Great Intelligence" [Universal Mind, or divine Ideation] of all things; it rules all and is male [it is the Mahat of the Hindus). The other is much inferior, for it is [manifested] Thought, the great female AEon: these two kinds of AEons, intercommunicating with each other, form and manifest the intermediate [the middle sphere, or plane], the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end'." (Philosophomena, p. 261, lines 13 to 16.) This female "Air" is our Ether, or the Kabalistic Astral Light. It is, then, the Second World of Simon, born of FIRE, the principle of everything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the Intelligent, Divine Flame, omnipresent and infinite. In Simon's system this Second World was ruled by a Being, or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and bad. This Parent- Being is also called "that which is, was, and will be," so long as the manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated in actu and became like unto its own parent, it was not dual nor androgyne. It is the Thought that emanated from it which became as itself (the Parent), having become as its image (or antetype); the second had now become in its turn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As the author of Philosophomena has it: "The Parent (or Father) was alone on it, containing in itself the Thought, not being the first, though existing before anything else and though manifesting by its own virtue (or quality). But it was not called Father before Thought gave it that name. While developing itself, the [future] 'Father' manifested itself in its own Thought, but, once manifested, the thought did not act; but it hid in itself that 'Father' which it had seen, i.e., that second Potency of the intermediate world. Two Beings existed thence, the male-female Potency (or the Parent) and Epinoia (its Thought.) They were two yet one, though they manifested in a dual way: the male principle containing in itself a female potency, which is Spirit in the Thought [Nous and Epinoia], both being inseparable and one." (Ibid, No. 18, p. 261 et seq.) "He (Simon) calls the first Sysigie of the six Potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth; the male looks from on high and purveys to his spouse, for the Earth receives the spiritual fruits from Heaven whence they descend and are analogous with it." (Ibid., No. 13. p. 251.) Simon's Third World with its third series of six AEons and the seventh -- the Parent -- is emanated in the same way. It is the same note which runs through every Gnostic system -- gradual development downward into matter by similitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial Occultism, or Magic. With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency, synthesizing all, is the Spirit brooding over the dark waters of undifferentiated Space -- Narayana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in Christianity. But while conditioned and dwarfed in the latter by its limitations necessitating faith and grace, the Eastern conception shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenaeus supplements the information on the further development of the six AEons. We learn from him that Thought having separated itself from its Parent and knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to know, it proceeded to create on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming androgyne), -- proceeded to create inferior Hierarchies: Angels and Powers, Dominions and Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather emanated out of their own Essence, our world with its men and beings, over which they watch. It thus follows that every rational being -- called Man on Earth -- is of the same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher AEons, the primordial seven. It is for him to develop, "with the image before him of the highest," by imitation in actu, the potency with which the highest of his Parents, or "Fathers," is endowed. This, again, is found in Philosophomena, which speaks of the "three AEons," and says, "the first exists as That which is, was, and will be," or the uncreate Power, Atman; the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated Substance, our Buddhi) from or through the image of the former reflected in those waters, the image of him, or It, which moves on them; the third World (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that eternal and omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For, "all that is eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in everything that is," if only potentially, not actually. And "everything is that Image, provided the lower image (man) ascends to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought." Matter as Substance is eternal and has never been created. Therefore neither Simon Magus nor any great Gnostic ever speaks of its beginning, any more than does any Eastern philosopher. "Eternal Matter" receives its various forms on the lower AEon from the Creative Angels (Builders, we call them): Why should not Man, the direct heir of the highest AEon, do the same thing by the potentiality of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is Kriyasakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, and from the invisible, indestructible Matter. Truly says Jeremiah (chap. 1 v. 5): "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctioned thee," for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an AEon, or Divine Man, whether with Simon Magus or Eastern philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as occult as what is given in Instructions No. I. The terrestrial Paradise is the Universal Womb, says Simon, Eden the membrane which envelopes the Foetus. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; the four Heads (streams) that flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the Foetus, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child being, according to Simon, entirely enveloped by the Amnion, and it being fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta. [3] (Philosophomena, p. 253.) The above is given for the elucidation of that which has to be said now. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and he is known to have also instructed them in magic; they making use of so-called "exorcisms" (as in the New Testament), incantations, philters; believing in dreams and visions, and producing them at will; and finally forcing the spirits of the lower orders to obey them. (Philosophomena and others.) Simon Magus was called the "Great Power of God." All this was termed Magic. We call it now Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge. His direct disciple, Menander, was also a great magician. Says Irenaeus, among other writers: "The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic." Thus both master and pupil are shown as having attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, which powers can only be obtained (as Christians claim) through "the help of the Devil." Yet they produced all that is spoken of in the New Testament, wherein such phenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are therefore, believed in and accepted as coming from and through God. But the question is, have the Christ- and Apostolic "miracles" ever been explained any more than are to this day the magical achievements of so-called sorcerers and magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word "miracle." Let us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic. The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely divine or terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill-fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How was she "divine Thought"? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in Philosophomena, or the third AEons, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them (see Secret Doctrine, vol. II), had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third AEons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the divine Thought through the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being according to the universal plan, they detained from him at first that divine spark (Thought; on Earth, Manas); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man's committing the original sin as the angels had committed it aeons before by refusing to create. (Vide Secret Doctrine.) Finally, after detaining Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the "divine Thought" to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through races and ages, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of Helena, the "prostitute," the "lost sheep" of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue that "lamb", and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helen -- hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief rites of that sort of magic are based on this disgusting literal interpretation of this noblest of myths, invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by his "Helena." It was the marriage of Nous (Atma-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For Atman in man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial divine Fire (or the eternal and universal "That which was, is, and will be"), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the "Father" in her turn, as also Will. She is "That which was, is, and will be," thus becoming male-female in Conjunction with Manas, only in this sphere. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost (see Philosophomena) and of Helena as his Epinoia, divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Sakti of the inner man, the female potency. Now what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of ENNOIA (designing Thought). It is Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and had imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils were said to "resurrect from the dead" after receiving baptism from him, (i.e., after initiation) and "growing no older," became "immortal." (Vide Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib. III, cap. 26.) The "resurrection" promised by Menander meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man's immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Raja Yogis -- Magic. Every person who has read Neo-Platonic philosophy knows how Plotinus, and Porphyry especially, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But Iamblichus, the author of the De Mysteriis, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true divine Science of Raja Yoga. Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, divine, and exalted above all others. "It is the great remedy for all... It neither takes its source in, nor is it limited to body or its passions, to the human compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our upper Gods" (our divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to the primeval divine Fire). (De Mysteriis, p. 100, lines 10 to 19, p. 109, Fol. I.) Jamblichus execrates physical phenomena produced, as he says, by the bad demons who deceive men (the spooks of the seance room), as much as he exalts divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the Theurgist must imperatively be "a man of high morality and a chaste soul;" the other kind of magic being used only by impure, selfish men, and having nothing of the divine in it..... No real Vates would ever consent to find its communications anything coming from our higher Gods. ... Thus one (Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other, subjection to the lower nature (of man)..... One requires holiness of the soul, a holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the desecration of it (that Soul).... One is the union with the Gods (with one's God) the source of all Good; the other, intercourse with demons (Elementals) which, unless we subject them, will subject us and lead us step by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short, "Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers, supports all and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of each of us, that the Soul having accomplished the sacred rites is consolidated in their (the Gods') action and intelligences, until it launches into and is absorbed by the primordial divine essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the Egyptians." (Ibid., p. 190, lines 15 to 18 et seq., caps. V and VII.) Now Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with its Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia which is Samadhi, the highest trance. (See. III, cap. III, p. 100.) He speaks also of dream which is divine vision, when man re-becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or Raja Yoga, a man arrives at (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Self of each of us) revealing to us truths of the plane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstacies and Illumination; (3) Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through will); and (4) the ruling over the minor, senseless demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our purified EGOs. But all this demands the complete purification of the latter. And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy. But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our inner senses and the knowledge of human self in relation to Divine Self. It is idle to anthropomorphize the formless, so long as man has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study. I mean by "formless" the higher, as the lower Gods, the supermundane as well as the mundane Spirits or Beings, which to the beginners can be revealed only in colors and sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a "God" in its true transcendental form, which to the untrained intellect, to the Chela, will be visible only by its Aura. The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums belong generally to one of the only three categories they can see: (a) the "Astrals" of living men; (b) Nirmanakayas (the Adepts, good or bad, whose bodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in their etherial personalities); and (c) Spooks, the Elementaries and Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed from the Astral Light, generally, or from the figures in the "mind's eye" of those present, or of the medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective auras. Having read the foregoing, students will now comprehend better the necessity of studying at first the "correspondences" between our "principles" -- which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual and physical) man -- and the direct roots of these -- our paradigm -- in the Universe. In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the --------- Enough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and the profane masses the sentence "Aum Mani Padme Hum" means only "Oh, the Jewel in the Lotus," esoterically it signifies. "Oh, my God within me." Yes, there is a God in each human being, for man was and will re-become God. The sentence points to the indissoluble union between man and the Universe. For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as absolute totality, and the Jewel is spiritual man, or God. In the last lesson the correspondences between Colors, Sounds and the human "Principles" were given; and those who have read the second volume of the Secret Doctrine will remember that these seven Principles are derived from the seven great Hierarchies of Angels, or Dhyan Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colors and Sounds, for they form collectively the Manifested Logos. In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colors, and in the number -- determined by the vibration of color and sound -- which "underlies every form and guides every sound" we find the summing-up of the manifested Universe. We may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of color and sound to the geometrical figures which, as explained in volume II of the Secret Doctrine, express the progressive stages in the manifestation of Kosmos. But the student will certainly be liable to confusion if he does not remember, in connection with the Diagrams, two things: First, that our plane, being a plane of reflection and therefore illusionary, the various notations are reversed and must be counted from below upwards. The scale of music begins from below upwards, commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si. Second, that Kama Rupa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale), as it contains all potentialities of matter, is necessarily the starting point on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on every plane, as corresponding to the "matter" of that plane. Again, the student must also remember that these notes have to be counted as arranged on a circle, and this shows how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short, musical notes, or sounds, colors and numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colors, in which red is counted first: a fact which necessitated my putting in the Tabular Diagram the principles and the days of the week at random. The musical scale and the colors, according to the numbers of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross matter to that of spirit thus:
Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondence between "principles" and numbers, for reasons given before. The esoteric cannot be made to correspond with the conventional exoteric. One is reality, the other classified according to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in Esoteric Buddhism, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse their minds. It was half a blind. To proceed:
The Point in the Circle, the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and to Absolute Sound. The first geometrical figure after the Circle and the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresponds to Color and Sound; thus the Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, "Father-Mother," or the White Ray which is no color, since it contains potentially all colors. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around the first Triangle is formed on the plane of primordial substance in this order (reversed as to our plane):
(b) Divine Ideation, or the Universal Mind. (c) The synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing all and radiating all. (d) Animal or material soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable intelligence and instinct. (e) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligence, Fohat. (f) Life Principle in Nature. (g) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. Sexual affinity on the spiritual plane. Now this is the World of Reality. Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, it is reversed, and becomes on Earth and our plane: (a) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it is shown in its lowest animal form. (b) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests -- color of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the vital principle. (c) The Yellow or radiant Golden is the color of the spiritual, divine ray in every atom in man of Buddhi. (d) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours. Green absorbs the Red because it is threefold stronger in its vibrations than the Red. And Green is the complementary color of extreme Red. This is why the Lower Manas and the Kâma Rűpa are respectively shown as Green and Red. (e) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature, as it is of Man. (f) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature. (g) The most ethereal counterpart of the body of man, the opposite pole, standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red. The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned. In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colors and Sounds, therefore of Numbers, are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, as it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the Red color, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet color, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colors: neither are such vibrations capable of causing in us the sensation of color or sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more; unless we learn to paralyze our Quaternary and to discern both with our spiritual senses seated in the upper Triangle. Now, on this plane of illusions there are three fundamental colors, as found by physical Science -- Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) the Kama Rupa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to and serving as a vehicle for the animal soul, the Lower Manas (the colors Red and Green being interchangeable); (2) the Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3) Prana, or life principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living man as he is on Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi-illusion, and seeking in the natural colors themselves, or those of the "principles," -- i.e., if we try to find out which are those that in the perfect man absorb all others -- we shall find that the colors correspond and become complementary in the following way:
Hence the full septenary man presents the following appearance; symbolically as to the geometrical figures, and in reality as to the various colors of his principles: [4]
As seen, a faint violet, mist-like form represents the Astral man within an oviform bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the seven prismatic colors. That color is predominant the corresponding principle of which is the most active in man generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and it is by the predominance of this or that color, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant -- acquainted with "correspondences" -- can judge of the inner state or character of a person, for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist. In the trance state the aura changes entirely. The seven prismatic colors are no longer discernible. Nor are they all "at home" during sleep. For all those which belong to the spiritual elements in him (yellow, Buddhi; indigo, Higher Manas; and the blue of the Auric Envelope) will be either hardly discernible or altogether missing. The spiritual man is free during sleep and lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, though his physical memory may not become aware of it -- in realms which are the land of reality -- called dreams on our plane of illusion. A good clairvoyant, furthermore, who had an opportunity of seeing side by side a Yogi in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state as the result of extraneous influence. In the Yogi, the principles of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely, i.e., neither red, green, red-violet nor the auric blue of the body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prana principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head (where the Third Eye rests) and culminating in a point. If the student remembers that the true violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound color of red and blue, but a homogeneous color with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the extreme red [5] and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from red-range to yellow-orange and yellow (vide table infra), he will understand the reason why: he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas. On the other hand, in a subject in a hypnotic or mesmeric trance artificially produced -- an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept -- the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red-violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kama Rupa (the green and red animal monsters in us).
One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important it is for every student -- whether striving for practical occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge -- to master thoroughly the right correspondences between the human, or the nature principles, and those of Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the inner man and his divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as swimming is to fishes.
It is like a Laplander denying in full sincerity to the catgut strung loosely on the sounding-board of a violin the power to produce comprehensive sounds or a melody. Our principles are the seven-stringed lyre of Apollo, truly.
In this our age, when oblivion has passed over the ancient knowledge, man's faculties are no better than the loose strings of a violin to the Laplander.
But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune the violin in harmony with the vibrations of color and sound will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm will, when combined give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation of Aum Mani Padme Hum. This is why in the school of Pythagoras the previous knowledge of music and geometry were obligatory. ---------------- The Roots of Color and Sound. Further, each of the primordial Seven -- the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos -- is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colors of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colors. But in this case one color -- that which characterizes the particular Hierarachy as a whole -- is predominant and more intense than the others.
PLATE I. These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colors: each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colors in their natural order. But in each of these "wheels" one circle will be brighter and more vivid in color than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that color. This color will be the characteristic color of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the soul) and is the "Builder" of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature -- which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man (see Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 273 to 278); and besides this, each Hierarchy furnishes the aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific color. Moreover, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis. [SEE PLATE I AND THE LINEAR DIAGRAM ON PAGE 30.] Let us demonstrate the fact by showing the symbol adopted in the Eastern school which represents the Seven Hierarchies of Creative Powers; call them Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, which is our present case. At all events the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel's Wheels with some Eastern Occultists and Kabalists, and for the "Builders" or Prajapati with us. The student should carefully examine the Linear Diagram on the following page. Thus the Linga-Sarira Violet is derived from the Violet sub-ray of the Violet Hierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub-ray of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. [5] The student will understand that that the Orders and Hierarchies are named here after their corresponding colors so as to avoid using numerals, which would be confusing in connection with the human principles -- the latter having no proper number of their own. The real occult names of these Hierarchies cannot now be given.
LINEAR DIAGRAM
The student must, however, remember that the colors which we see with our physical eyes are not the true colors of occult nature, but are merely the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain rates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that any color may be imitated in its effects on our retina by properly combining three other colors. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three distinct color sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven colors which really exist, but only their "imitations," so to speak, in our physical organism. Thus, for instance, the orange-red of the first "Triangle" is not a combination of orange and red, but is the true "spiritual" red, if the term may be allowed, while the red (blood-red) of the spectrum is the color of the Kama -- animal desire -- and is inseparable from the material plane. Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we considered as Atheists. But Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is based in reality and absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, i.e., the Absolute Deity; and if IT is not speculated upon (because too sacred and absolutely incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect) the entire philosophy is based upon its divine Powers as sources of all that breathes and lives and has its existence, not merely its being. In every ancient religion the ONE was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, as also in Chaldea and Phoenicia and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples of three, five and seven; also of eight, nine and twelve great Gods -- symbolizing the powers and properties of the Only and Sole; it was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers that the metaphysics of these nations subjected their ONE DIVINITY to. Thus constituted, the cycle of the Gods had all the qualities and attributes of the "ONE SUPREME AND UNKNOWABLE;" for in this collection of divine personalities -- or rather of symbols personified -- dwells the ONE GOD, the GOD ONE, that God which, as in India, has no Second: "Oh God Ani (the Spiritual Sun), thou residest in the agglomeration of thy divine personages." (Apud Gribant Papyrus Orbiney, p. 101.) These words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation proceeded from one and the same source, all emanating from the one identical principle which can never be completely developed except in and through the collective and entire aggregate of its emanations. The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, and differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic AEons and the Angels of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Saddhus of the Puranas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the "Principle" of Simon Magus and Saturnilus, holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Aletheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are taught, say at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old: "The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth;" and, addressing Ra, they add: "The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of all that which produces them ... and say to thee, Peace to all, emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the Gods... Thou producer of beings, we adore the Souls which emanate from thee. Thou begettest us, Oh, thou Unknown, and we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in us." (Hymn to Amon-Ra) This is the source of the assertion, "Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God." This is shown in the "Roots of Ritualism and Masonry," in Lucifer for April, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, "Man cannot possess Truth (Aletheia) except he participate in the Valentinian Gnosis." So we may say now: "No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Aletheia of Occult Science." H. P. B. _______________ Notes: 1. Meanwhile we point out for confirmation Origen's works (vol. II, pp. 362 to 368), who says that "the seven ruling daimons" (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the lion-like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel, etc.; and all these, the "Seven of the Presence," are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets by Porphyry, or Porphyry's Tree, as it is usually called. 2. Magic, Magia, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the "Great Life," or divine life in spirit. 3. At first there are the Omphalo-mesenteric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the "vascular area" on the "Umbilical Vesicle," from which they proceed. As regards the "Umbilical vessels" proper, the Umbilical Cord ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the Foetus and two Hypogastric or Umbilical arteries which take the used-up blood from the Foetus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus Science corroborates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient Occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about physiology. While this instruction was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome Anderson, F.T.S. (E.S., which were printed in 1884 and 1888, in which are to be found the scientific demonstration of the foetal nutrition as advanced in Instructions No. 1. Briefly, the Foetus is nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any of our members care to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson's Remarks on the Nutrition of the Foetus. (Wood & Co., New York.) 4. [Owing to the difficulty of representing the colors of the aura on a plane surface, and the lack of proper facilities for color-printing, the illustration here given is only approximate.] 5. Every man being born under one planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet's color in him, because that "principle" will rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the color derived from the other planets present in his aura, but that of the ruling planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle is predominant will be able, by acting upon the Mercury in another person born under a different planet, to get him entirely under his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the Occult Sciences of Magnestism and Hypnotism. *** MEMORANDUM It has become evident that, even in the Esoteric Section, there is need of regular discipline, and that members are only too ready to attribute personal motives to the Head of the Section whenever any fault or breach of Rule is pointed out to them. Further, it is impossible for me, in my present state of bad health, to bear unassisted the whole burden of the exoteric organization of the Section. Consequently I have determined to form a Supreme Council of fourteen, consisting of the following members, in whom I have full confidence. The Council of fourteen will be divided into two executive bodies, one of which will exercise its functions in Europe, India and the Colonies, and the other in America. The Council for Europe will consist of the following: Countess C. Wachtmeister, W. Kingsland, [1] C. F. Wright, W. R. Old, [2] A. W. Cobbold, A. Keightley, and B. Keightley. [3] The Council for America will consist of the following: Mrs. J. Campbell Ver-Planck, William Q. Judge, Dr. J. D. Buck, J. Ransom Bridge, and three other persons to be selected by them and approved by me. All matters of organization, administration and discipline will be dealt with by the above-named Council, and their unanimous decision will be final, subject to any directions which may be received from the Highest Authorities -- which, however, must be expected only on very exceptional occasions. It will also be the duty of the Council to call the attention of members if they are apparently acting contrary to the spirit of their Pledge. The necessity of this has been shown by the fact that in the short time which has elapsed since the formation of the Section three members have proved unfaithful to their Pledge. This is very serious, for the teaching being in their hands, it is impossible to say what use may be made of it in view of their defection. I am unable to say whether the Pledge of secrecy will be binding on them as it ought to be on every honorable man or woman to the end of their life, whether they leave the Section or not. This prevents and will prevent the esoteric explanations being as full as I should otherwise make them, for the occult solidarity of the Section is such that all the good and faithful must suffer for the fault of the bad and unfaithful. I am in hopes that the above arrangements will relieve me of incessant anxieties and responsibilities, and enable me to devote myself the better to the occult teachings which it is my desire to impart to the members of the Section to the largest possible extent, thus utilizing the short time I have to remain with them. Finally, I must point out to the members of the Section once again that the Pledge of inviolable secrecy which they have taken is binding for life; and that if for any reason a member leaves the Section it is obligatory that he should immediately return all documents and papers relating thereto. Members must also make proper provision for the security of these papers in case of death or accident to themselves, and for their due return under such circumstances. In accordance with the first paragraph of Rule 7 of the Pledge-Card, I have to notify that: Mr. T. B. Harbottle has withdrawn from the Section; the certificates of Mrs. Vittoria Cremers and Mrs. Mabel Cook (M. C.) have been cancelled for serious breach of their Pledge. (Signed.) H. P. BLAVATSKY, BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, :.> WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, A true copy. _______________ Notes: 1. President of the Blavatsky Lodge. 2. Vice-President of the Blavatsky Lodge. 3. Secretary of the Esoteric Section.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MARS. The Planet of Generation
THE SUN. Giver of Life Physically. Spiritually and
esoterically the substitute for the inter-Mercurial planet,
a sacred and secret planet with the ancients
MERCURY. The Messenger and the Interpreter of the Gods.
SATURN
JUPITER
VENUS. The Morning and the Evening Star.
THE MOON. Parent of the Earth
