THE SECRET DOCTRINE:
THE SYNTHESIS
OF
SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.
by H. P. BLAVATSKY
XI.
ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS.
FROM THE STAND-POINT OF SCIENCE AND THAT OF OCCULTISM.
WHEN the Occultist speaks of "Elements," and of
human Beings who lived during those geological ages, the duration of
which it is found as impossible to determine, according to the opinion
of one of the best
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 567 METAPHYSICAL CHEMISTRY.
English geologists*, as the nature of matter, it is because he knows
what he is talking about. When he says "Man" and Elements, he neither
means "man" in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor
the elemental atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, the entitative
abstractions of matter in its highly attenuated state, as existing at
present in scientific minds; nor, again, the compound Elements of
antiquity. In Occultism the word Element means "rudiment" in
every case. When we say "Elementary Man," we mean either the proemial,
incipient sketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition,
hence in that form which now lies latent in physical man during his
life-time, and takes shape only occasionally and under certain
conditions; or that form which for a time survives the material body,
and which is better known as an "Elementary."** With regard to
"Element," when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in
distinction to the mortal, the incipient divine man; and, in
its physical usage, inchoate matter in its first undifferentiated
condition, or in the laya state, which is the eternal and the
normal condition of substance, differentiating only
periodically, and is during that differentiation in an abnormal
state -- in other words, a transitory illusion of the senses.
As to the "elemental atoms," so called, the Occultists refer to them
by that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the
Hindu to Brahma when he calls him ANU, the "Atom."
Every elemental atom, in search of which more than one
Chemist has followed the path indicated by the Alchemists, is, in their
firm belief (when not knowledge), a SOUL; not
necessarily a disembodied soul, but a jiva, as the
Hindus call it, a centre of POTENTIAL VITALITY, with latent intelligence
in it, and, in the case of compound Souls -- an intelligent active
EXISTENCE, from the highest to the lowest order, a form composed of more
or less differentiations. It requires a metaphysician -- and an Eastern
metaphysician -- to understand our meaning. All those atom-Souls are
differentiations from the ONE, and in the same relation to it as the
divine Soul -- the Buddhi -- to its informing and inseparable
Spirit, or Atman.
Modern physics, while borrowing from the ancients their atomic
theory, forgot one point, the most important of the doctrine; hence they
got only the husks and will never be able to get at the kernel. They
left behind, in the adoption of physical atoms, the suggestive fact that
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* In answer to a friend, that eminent geologist writes: . . . ."I can
only say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps
always will be, IMPOSSIBLE to reduce, even approximately, geological
time into years, or even into millenniums." (Signed William Pengelly,
F.R.S.)
** Plato speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements "composed of
fire, air, water, and earth," means Elementary Daemons. (See
Timaeus.)
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 568 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
from Anaxagoras down to Epicurus, the Roman Lucretius, and finally
even to Galileo, all those Philosophers believed more or less in
ANIMATED atoms, not in invisible specks of so-called "brute" matter.
Rotatory motion was generated in their views, by larger (read, more
divine and pure) atoms forcing downwards other atoms; the lighter ones
being thrust simultaneously upward. The esoteric meaning of this is the
ever cyclic curve downward and upward of differentiated elements through
intercyclic phases of existence, until each reaches again its starting
point or birthplace. The idea was metaphysical as well as physical; the
hidden interpretation embracing "gods" or souls, in the shape of atoms,
as the causes of all the effects produced on Earth by
the secretions from the divine bodies.* No ancient philosopher,
not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated Spirit from matter or
vice versa. Everything originated in the ONE, and, proceeding
from the one, must finally return to the One. "Light becomes heat, and
consolidates into fiery particles; which, from being ignited, become
cold, hard particles, round and smooth. And this is called Soul,
imprisoned in its robe of matter;"** Atoms and Souls
having been synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The
"whirling Souls," Gilgoolem, a doctrine in which so
many learned Jews have believed (See Mackenzie's Royal
Masonic Cyclopaedia), had no other meaning esoterically.
The learned Jewish Initiates never meant by the "Promised land"
Palestine alone, but the same Nirvana as the learned Buddhist
and Brahmin do -- the bosom of the ETERNAL ONE,
symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its substitute on
Earth.*** The passage of the SOUL-ATOM
"through the Seven Planetary Chambers" had the same metaphysical and
also physical meaning. It had the latter when it was said to
dissolve into Ether (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I.,
p. 297.) Even Epicurus, the model Atheist and materialist, knew
and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that he taught that the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Plato uses the words "secretions" of turbulent
Elements (Timaeus).
** Valentinus' Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul.
*** Surely no educated Jew ever believed the literal
sense of this allegory -- namely, that "the bodies of Jews
deposited in foreign lands contain within them a principle of Soul which
cannot rest, until by a process called the "whirling of the Soul" the
immortal particle reaches once more the sacred Soil of the "Promised
land." The meaning is evident to an occultist. The process was supposed
to be accomplished by a kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being
conveyed through bird, beast, fish, and the most minute insect. (See
Royal Masonic Cyclo. Mackenzie.) The Allegory relates to
the atoms of the body, which have each to pass through
every form before all reach the final state, which is the first
starting point of the departure of every atom -- its primitive laya
State. But the primitive meaning of Gilgoolem, or
"Revolution of Souls," was the idea of the re-incarnating Souls or
Egos. "All the Souls go into the gilgoolah," into
a cyclic or revolving process; i.e., they all proceed on the
cyclic path of re-births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean
only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not
so.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 569 PANTHEISM VERSUS MATERIALISM.
Soul (entirely distinct from immortal Spirit when the former is
enshrined latent in it, as it is in every atomic speck), was
composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the smoothest,
roundest, and finest atoms.
And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or
less closely by all profane antiquity, meant by the term "ATOM," a Soul,
a Genius or Angel, the first-born of the ever-concealed CAUSE of all
causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible. They
claimed, as do their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, angels
or "demons," not outside, or independent of, the Universal Plenum,
but within it. Only this Plenum, during the
life-cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught a good deal of that
which modern Science teaches now --namely, the existence of a primordial
"World-stuff or Cosmic Substance," from which worlds are formed, ever
and eternally homogeneous, except during its periodic existence, when it
differentiates its universal diffusion throughout infinite space; and
the gradual formation of sidereal bodies from it. They taught the
revolution of the Heavens, the Earth's rotation, the Heliocentric
System, and the Atomic Vortices -- Atoms -- in reality Souls and
intelligences. But those "Atomists" were spiritual, most transcendental,
and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would have ever
conceived, or dreamt that monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of
our modern civilized Race; namely -- inanimate material,
self-guiding atoms, on the one hand, and an extra-Cosmic God on the
other.
It may be useful to show what, in the teachings of the old Initiates,
the Monad was, and what its origin.
Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens,
perceived the great, and, to it, hitherto esoteric axiom, that
nothing -- whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of being
-- could come into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the
manifested universe without its adequate effects, whether in space or
time; nor can there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself
owes its existence to a still higher one -- the final and absolute cause
having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible CAUSELESS
CAUSE. But even this is no solution, and must be
viewed, if at all, from the highest philosophical and metaphysical
standpoints, otherwise the problem had better be left unapproached. It
is an abstraction, on the verge of which human reason -- however trained
to metaphysical subtleties -- trembles, threatening to collapse. This
may be demonstrated to any European who would undertake to solve the
problem of existence by the articles of faith of the true Vedantin, for
instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings on the subject of
Soul and Spirit, of
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 570 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Sankaracharya (Viveka Chudamani)*, and the reader
will realize what is now said.
While the Christian is taught that the human soul is a breath of God
-- being created by him for sempiternal existence, i.e., having
a beginning, but no end (and therefore never to be called
eternal) -- the Occult teaching says, "Nothing is created,
but is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this
universe -- from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought -- that was not
in the universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an
eternal IS; as everything on the objective plane is an ever becoming
-- because transitory."
The monad -- a truly "indivisible thing," as defined by Good, who did
not give it the sense we now do -- is here rendered as the Atma
in conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity
is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the
termination of all conditioned and illusive life. The monad,
then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and its changes
of transitory vehicles only from the incipient stage of the manifested
Universe. In Pralaya, or the intermediate period between two
manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the real ONE self of
man merges into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya
state) or final Nirvana; "when the disciple" in the words of
Sankara, "having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss,
of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons
this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma just as an
actor (abandons) the dress (put on)." For Buddhi (the Anandamaya
sheath) is but a mirror which reflects absolute
bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free
from ignorance, and is not the Supreme Spirit, being subject to
conditions, being a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and an effect;
Atma alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all -- the
essence and absolute knowledge -- the Kshetragna.** It
is called in the Esoteric philosophy "the One Witness,"
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Translated for the Theosophist, by Mohini M.
Chatterji as "Crest Jewel of Wisdom," 1886. (See Theosophist,
July and August numbers).
** Now that the revised version of the gospels has been published and
the most glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one
will understand better the words in St. John v., vi., and vii.: "It is
the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is the
truth." The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the
"three witnesses," -- hitherto supposed to stand for "the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost" -- show the real meaning of the writer (St.
John) very clearly, thus still more forcibly identifying his teaching in
this respect with that of Sankaracharya. For what can the sentence,
"there are three who bear witness: the Spirit and the Water and
the Blood" -- mean, if they bear no relation to, or connection
with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedanta teacher,
who, speaking of the sheaths (the principles in man)
Jiva, Vignanamaya, etc., which are,
in their physical manifestation, "water and blood"
or life, adds that atma (spirit) alone is what remains
after the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 571 THE DIAMOND HEART.
and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as "the Three
Witnesses to Karma."
Atma (our seventh principle) being identical with the
universal Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then
the Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in
millions of rays from the primeval "Seven;" -- of which seven further
on. It is the EMANATING spark from the UNCREATED
Ray -- a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric
Buddhism of the North, Adi Buddha (Chogi dangpoi sangye),
the One unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm
and Ain-Soph, emits a bright ray from its darkness.
This is the Logos (the first), or Vajradhara, the Supreme
Buddha (also called Dorjechang). As the Lord of all
Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation
his heart -- the "diamond heart," Vajrasattva (Dorjesempa).
This is the second logos of creation, from whom emanate
the seven (in the exoteric blind the five) Dhyani Buddhas, called the
Anupadaka, "the parentless." These Buddhas are the primeval monads from
the world of incorporeal being, the Arupa
world, wherein the Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape
nor name, in the exoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in
esoteric philosophy. These Dhyani Buddhas emanate, or create from
themselves, by virtue of Dhyana, celestial Selves -- the super-human
Bodhisattvas. These incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on
earth as mortal men, become occasionally, owing to their personal merit,
Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity, after which they may re-appear
as Manushi (human) Buddhas. The Anupadaka (or Dhyani-Buddhas)
are thus identical with the Brahminical Manasaputra,
"mind-born sons" -- whether of Brahma or either of the other two
Trimurtian Hypostases, hence identical also with the Rishis and
Prajapatis. Thus, a passage is found in Anugita,
which, read esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery,
the same idea and system. It says: "Whatever entities there are in this
world, moveable or immoveable, they are the very first to be dissolved
(at pralaya); and next the developments produced from
the elements (from which the visible Universe is fashioned); and, after
these developments (evolved entities), all the elements. Such is the
upperward gradation among entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pisachas,
Asuras, Rakshasas, all have been created by Svabhava (Prakriti, or
plastic nature), not by actions, nor by a cause" -- i.e., not
by any physical cause.
"These Brahmanas (the Rishi Prajapati?), the creators of the world,
are born here (on earth) again and again. Whatever is produced from
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] subtraction of the
sheaths and that it is the ONLY witness, or
synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely
with an eye to a trinity made three witnesses out of "one," thus
connecting it more with earth than with heaven.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 572 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
them is dissolved in due time in those very five great elements (the
five, or rather seven, Dhyani Buddhas, also called "Elements" of
Mankind), like billows in the ocean. These great elements are in every
way beyond the elements that make up the world (the gross elements). And
he who is released even from these five elements (the tanmatras)* goes
to the highest goal." "The Lord Prajapati (Brahma) created all this by
the mind only," i.e., by Dhyana, or
abstract meditation and mystic powers like the Dhyani Buddhas (vide
supra). Evidently then, these "Brahmanas" are identical
with the Bodhisattvas (the terrestrial) of the heavenly Dhyani Buddhas.
Both, as primordial, intelligent "Elements," become the creators
or the emanators of the monads destined to become human in
that cycle; after which they evolve themselves, or, so to say, expand
into their own selves as Bodhisattvas or Brahmanas, in heaven
and earth, to become at last simple men --"the creators of the world
are born here, on earth again and again" --
truly. In the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric
religion, it is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the good law
on earth, manifests himself simultaneously in three worlds: in the
formless, as Dhyani Buddha, in the World of forms, as a Bodhisattva, and
in the world of desire, the lowest (or our world) as a man. Esoterically
the teaching differs: The divine, purely Adi-Buddhic monad
manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Maha-buddhi or Mahat in
Hindu philosophies) the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of
divine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos.
This descends "like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire,
immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end" of
the cycle of existence, and becomes universal life on the Mundane Plane.
From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery
tongues, the Sons of Light (the logoi of Life); then the
Dhyani-Buddhas of contemplation: the concrete forms of their formless
Fathers -- the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves,
to whom may be applied the Brahmanical mystic phrase: "Thou art 'THAT'
-- Brahm." It is from these Dhyani-Buddhas that
emanate their chhayas (Shadows) the Bodhisattvas of the
celestial realms, the prototypes of the super-terrestrial
Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The
"Seven Sons of Light" are also called "Stars."
The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult
teaching, will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of
its incarnations in one Manvantara. But this is not his astrological
star. The latter is concerned and connected with the
personality, the former with
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The Tanmatras are literally the type or rudiment of an element
devoid of qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval
noumenoi of that which becomes in the progress of evolution a
Cosmic element in the sense given to the term in antiquity, not in that
of physics. They are the logoi, the seven emanations or rays of the
logos.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 573 THE CREST-JEWEL OF WISDOM.
the INDIVIDUALITY. The "Angel" of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha
will be either the guiding or simply the presiding "Angel," so to say,
in every new rebirth of the monad, which is part of his own essence,
though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact.
The adepts have each their Dhyani-Buddha, their elder "twin Soul," and
they know it, calling it "Father-Soul," and "Father-Fire." It is only at
the last and supreme initiation, however, that they learn it when placed
face to face with the bright "Image." How much has Bulwer Lytton known
of this mystic fact when describing, in one of his highest inspirational
moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?
The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the
manifested WORD, is called by the Hindus, Iswara, "the
Lord," though the Occultists give it another name. Iswara, say the
Vedantins, is the highest consciousness in nature. "This highest
consciousness," answer the Occultists, "is only a synthetic unit
in the world of the manifested Logos -- or on the plane of
illusion; for it is the sum total of Dhyan-Chohanic
consciousnesses." "Oh, wise man, remove the conception
that not-Spirit is Spirit," says Sankaracharya.
Atma is not-Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state,
Iswara or Logos is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it
is a compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent-source and
nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial monads, plus their
divine reflection, which emanate from, and return into, the Logos,
each in the culmination of its time. There are seven chief groups of
such Dhyan Chohans, which groups will be found and recognised in every
religion, for they are the primeval SEVEN Rays. Humanity, occultism
teaches us, is divided into seven distinct groups and their
sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical.* The monad, then, viewed
as ONE, is above the seventh principle (in Kosmos and man), and as a
triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said compound
UNIT, not the breath (and special creation out of nihil)
of "God," as that unit is called; for such an idea is quite
unphilosophical, and degrades Deity, dragging it down to a finite,
attributive condition. As well expressed by the translator of the
"Crest-Jewel of Wisdom" -- though Iswara is "God"
"unchanged in the profoundest depths of pralayas and in the
intensest activity of the manvantaras" . . ., still "beyond
(him) is
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Hence the seven chief planets, the spheres of the
indwelling seven spirits, under each of which is born one of the human
groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are only seven
planets (specially connected with earth), and twelve houses,
but the possible combinations of their aspects are countless. As each
planet can stand to each of the others in twelve different aspects,
their combinations must, therefore, be almost infinite; as infinite, in
fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical capacities in the
numberless varieties of the genus homo, each of which
varieties is born under one of the seven planets and one of the said
countless planetary combinations. See Theosophist, for
August, 1886.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 574 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
'ATMA,' round whose pavilion is the darkness of
eternal MAYA."* The "triads" born under the same
Parent-planet, or rather the radiations of one and the
same Planetary Spirit (Dhyani Buddha) are, in all their after lives and
rebirths, sister, or "twin-souls," on this Earth.**
This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every
country: "I and my Father are one," said Jesus (John x. 30).*** When He
is made to say, elsewhere (xx. 17): "I ascend to my Father and
your Father," it meant that which has just been stated. It was simply to
show that the group of his disciples and followers attracted to Him
belonged to the same Dhyani Buddha, "Star," or "Father," again of the
same planetary realm and division as He did. It is the knowledge
of this occult doctrine that found expression in the
review of "The Idyll of the White Lotus," when Mr. T. Subba Row wrote:
"Every Buddha meets at his last initiation all the great adepts who
reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages . . . every class of adepts
has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together. . . .
. The only possible and effectual way of entering into such brotherhood
. . . . is by bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual
light which radiates from one's own Logos. I may
further point out here . . . . that such communion is only possible
between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the
same divine RAY, and that, as seven distinct rays radiate from the
'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan Chohans are divisible
into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled,
and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of
the divine Wisdom." ("Theosophist," Aug., 1886.)
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The now universal error of attributing to the ancients the
knowledge of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no
others, is based on the same general ignorance of their occult
doctrines. The question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of
the existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence
paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret great gods -- the
star-angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say
there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many
planets as we do now (and this question can hardly be decided at
present, either way), they would have still connected with their
religious worship only the seven, because these seven are directly and
specially connected with our earth, or, using esoteric phraseology, with
our septenary ring of spheres. (See supra.)
** It is the same, only still more metaphysical idea, as that of the
Christian Trinity -- "Three in One" -- i.e., the
Universal "over-Spirit," manifesting on the two higher planes, those of
Buddhi and Mahat; and these are the three hypostases, metaphysical, but
never personal.
*** The identity, and at the same time the illusive differentiation
of the Angel-Monad and the Human-Monad is shown by the
following sentences: "My Father is greater than I" (John xiv.
26) ; "Glorify your Father who is in Heaven"
(Matt. v. 16); "The righteous will shine in the kingdom of
their Father" (not our Father) (Matt. xiii. 43) "Know ye
not ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you? (I Cor. iii. 16); "I ascend to my
Father," etc., etc.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 575 WHAT ARE THE SEVEN PLANETS?
It is then the "Seven Sons of Light" -- called after their planets
and (by the rabble) often identified with them -- namely Saturn,
Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and -- presumably for the modern
critic, who goes no deeper than the surface of old religions* -- the Sun
and Moon, which are, according to the Occult teachings, our heavenly
Parents, or "Father," synthetically. Hence, as already remarked,
polytheism is really more philosophical and correct, as to fact and
nature, than anthropomorphic monotheism. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and
Venus, the four exoteric planets, and the three others, which must
remain unnamed, were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic
communication with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers -- morally and
physically; the visible orbs furnishing our Humanity with its outward
and inward characteristics, and their "Regents" or Rectors with
our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order to avoid creating new
misconceptions, let it be stated that among the three secret
orbs (or star-angels) neither Uranus nor Neptune entered; not only
because they were unknown under these names to the ancient Sages, but
because they, as all other planets, however many there may be, are the
gods and guardians of other septenary chains of globes within
our systems.
Nor do the two last discovered great planets depend entirely on the
Sun like the rest of the planets. Otherwise, how explain the fact that
Neptune receives 900 times less light than our Earth, and Uranus 390
times less, and that their satellites show a peculiarity of inverse
rotation found in no other planets of the Solar System. At any rate,
what we say applies to Uranus, though recently the fact begins again to
be disputed.
This subject will, of course, be considered mere vagary by all those
who confuse the universal order of being with their own systems of
classification. Here, however, simple facts from Occult teachings are
stated, to be either accepted or rejected, as the case may be. There are
details which, on account of their great metaphysical abstractions,
cannot be entered upon. Hence, we merely state that only seven of
our planets are as intimately related to our globe, as the Sun is to all
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* These are planets accepted for purposes of judicial astrology only.
The astrotheogonical division differed from this one. The Sun, being a
central star and no planet, stands in more occult and
mysterious relations with its seven planets of our
globe than is generally known. The Sun was, therefore, considered the
great Father of all the Seven "Fathers," which accounts for the
variations found between seven and eight great gods of
the Chaldean and other countries. Neither the earth nor the moon -- its
satellite -- nor yet stars, for another reason -- were anything else
than substitutes for esoteric purposes. Yet, even with the Sun
and the Moon thrown out of the calculation, the ancients seem to have
known of seven planets. How many more are known to us, so far,
if we throw out the Earth and Moon? Seven, and no more: Seven primary or
principal planets, the rest planetoids rather than planets.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 576 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the bodies subject to him in his system. Of these bodies the poor
little number of primary and secondary planets known
to astronomy, looks wretched enough, in truth.* Therefore, it stands to
reason that there are a great number of planets, small and large, that
have not been discovered yet, but of the existence of which ancient
astronomers -- all of them initiated adepts -- must have certainly been
aware. But, as their relation to the gods was sacred, it had to remain
arcane, as also the names of various other planets and stars.
Besides which, even the Roman Catholic theology speaks of "seventy
planets that preside over the destinies of the nations of this
globe"; and, save the erroneous application, there is more truth in this
tradition than in exact modern astronomy. The seventy planets are
connected with the seventy elders of the people of Israel (Numb.
11, 16) because the regents of these planets are meant,
not the orbs themselves; and the word seventy is a play and a blind
upon the 7 x 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as said
already, has its direct Watcher, Guardian and Father in Heaven
-- a Planetary Spirit. We are willing to leave their own national God,
Jehovah, to the descendants of Israel, the worshippers of Sabaoth
or SATURN; for, indeed, the monads of the
people chosen by him are his own, and the Bible has never made a secret
of it. Only the text of the English (Protestant) Bible is, in
disagreement, as usual, with those of the Septuagint and the Vulgate.
Thus, while in the former one reads (in Deuter. xxxii., 8
and 9) "When the MOST HIGH (not Jehovah) divided to the
nations their inheritance . . . he set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel," in the
Septuagint the text reads "according to the number of the
Angels" (Planet-Angels), which is more concordant with
truth and fact. Moreover, all the texts agree that "the Lord's (Jehovah)
portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his
inheritance" (Deut. xxxii. 9); and this settles the question. The "Lord"
Jehovah took for his portion Israel -- what have other nations
to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the "angel
Gabriel" watch over Iran and "Mikael-Jehovah" over the Hebrews. These
are not the gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why
Christians
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir W.
Herschell, that eminent astronomer, gauging merely that portion of
heaven in the equatorial plane, the approximate centre of which is
occupied by our Earth -- saw pass in one quarter of an hour, 16,000
stars; and applying this calculation to the totality of the "Milky Way"
he found in it no less than 18 (eighteen) millions of SUNS
-- one wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with Napoleon I.
should have called God a HYPOTHESIS -- perfectly useless to speculate
upon for exact physical Science, at any rate. Occult
metaphysics and transcendental philosophy will alone be able to lift the
smallest corner of the impenetrable veil in this direction.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 577 CYCLIC FALL OF THE GODS.
should have selected a god against whose commandments Jesus was the
first one to rise in rebellion.
The Planetary origin of the Monad (Soul) and of its faculties was
taught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from
the Earth, each soul born in, and from, the "Boundless Light,"* had to
pass through the seven planetary regions both ways. The pure Dhyani and
Devas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the
Zoroastrians, the Seven Daevas, the ministers of Ahriman, "each chained
to his planet" (see Origen's Copy of the Chart);
with the Brahmins, the Asuras and some of its Rishis -- good, bad
and indifferent; and among the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth
or (Hermes) who was the chief of the seven whose names are given by
Origen as Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao,
of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter; Sabao,
of Mars; Orai, of Venus; Astaphai,
of Mercury; and Ildabaoth (Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally,
the Pistis-Sophia, which the greatest modern
authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King,
refers to as "that precious monument of Gnosticism," -- this old
document echoes, while distorting it to sectarian purposes, the archaic
belief of the ages. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres (the planets)
create the monads (the Souls) from their own substance out of the "tears
of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments," endowing the monads
with a spark of the Divine Light, which is their substance. It will be
shown in Book II. why these "Lords of the Zodiac and Spheres" have been
transformed by sectarian theology into the rebellious angels of the
Christians, who took them from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without
understanding the significance of the allegory. (Vide Part II.,
"On the Seven Souls," and Section xv. in this
Part, "GODS, MONADS AND
ATOMS").
As usual, that which is and was from its beginning
divine, pure, and spiritual in its earliest unity, became, by reason of
its differentiation by the distorted prism of man's conceptions, human
and impure, as reflecting man's own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the
planet Saturn became reviled by the worshippers of other "gods." The
nations born under Saturn -- the Jewish, for instance -- with whom he
had become Jehovah, after having been held as a son of Saturn, or
Ilda-Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the book of Jasher -- were eternally
fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury, or any other planet,
except Saturn-Jehovah; genealogies and prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus
the initiate (or Jehoshua) -- the type from whom the
"historical" Jesus was
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* C. W. King, identifies it with "that summum bonum of
Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist Nirvana," perfect repose, the
Epicurean Indolentia, which looks flippant enough in
its expression, though not quite untrue.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 578 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
copied -- was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognised no
Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary god beside his own "Father,"
whom he knew, and with whom he communed as every high initiate does,
"Spirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul." This can hardly be taken exception
to, unless the critic explains to every one's satisfaction the strange
sentences put in the mouth of Jesus by the author of the Fourth Gospel (chapter
viii.) during his disputes with the Pharisees.
"I know ye are Abraham's seed* . . . I speak the things which I have
seen with my Father; and ye do the things which ye heard from
your Father. . . . . Ye do the works of your Father. .
. . . Ye are of your Father, the Devil. . . . . He was a murderer from
the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When one speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own; for his father also
is a liar and the father thereof," etc., etc.
That "Father" of the Pharisees was Jehovah, because identical with
Cain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc. -- the planet under which they were born, and
the God whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an occult meaning
sought in these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they
are pronounced by one who threatened with hell-fire anyone who says
simply raca (fool) to his brother (Matthew v.,
22). And evidently, again, the planets are not merely spheres,
twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but the domains of
various beings with whom the profane are so far unacquainted;
nevertheless, having a mysterious, unbroken, and powerful connection
with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple of a
god, and these gods themselves are the temples of GOD,
the Unknown "Not Spirit." There is nothing profane in the
Universe. All Nature is a consecrated place, as Young says: --
"Each of these Stars is a religious house." . . . .
Thus can all exoteric religions be shown the falsified copies of the
esoteric teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible
for the reaction in favour of materialism of our day. It is by
worshiping and enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells --
personified for purposes of allegory -- of pagan ideals, that the latest
exoteric religion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the
higher classes worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant
masses are made to worship an idol with feet of clay.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro-symbology, and he is the
forefather of the Jehovistic Jews.
[[H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, Page]] 579 ANTIQUITY OUR GREAT MASTER.
from
The Secret Doctrine,
by H. P. Blavatsky
**
**
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