«Тайная Доктрина, Том 3»

Высшее Эго может проявляться только через свои атрибуты.

В случаях внезапной смерти Низший Манас исчезает не больше, чем Кама-Рупа после смерти. После разрыва можно сказать, что Луч обрывается или отбрасывается. После смерти такой человек не может попасть в Девачан, но и не остается в Кама-Локе; его участь — немедленная реинкарнация. Такая сущность становится животной Душой плюс интеллект отсеченного Луча. Проявление этого интеллекта в следующем рождении будет полностью зависеть от физического строения мозга и воспитания.

Такая Душа может воссоединиться со своим Высшим Эго в следующем рождении, если окружающая среда даст ей шанс для устремления (это и есть «благодать» христиан); или она может продолжать существовать в течение двух или трех инкарнаций, при этом Луч становится все слабее и слабее и постепенно рассеивается, пока не родится врожденный идиот, а затем окончательно рассеивается в низших формах.

С Низшим Манасом связаны огромные тайны.

Что касается некоторых интеллектуальных гигантов, они находятся в несколько схожем состоянии с людьми меньшего масштаба, ибо их Высшее Эго парализовано, то есть их духовная природа атрофирована.

Манас может передавать свою сущность нескольким проводникам, например, Майяви-Рупе и т. д., и даже элементалам, которых он может одушевлять, как учили розенкрейцеры.

Майяви-Рупа иногда может быть настолько витализирована, что переходит на другой план и соединяется с существами этого плана, тем самым одушевляя их.

Люди, питающие большую привязанность к домашним животным, в определенной степени одушевляют их, и такие животные Души прогрессируют очень быстро; взамен такие люди получают обратно животную витальность и магнетизм. Однако это противно Природе — так акцентировать животную эволюцию, и в целом это плохо.

Монадическая эволюция.

Кумары не направляют эволюцию Лунных Питри. Чтобы понять последних, мы можем воспользоваться аналогией с кровью.

Кровь можно сравнить с универсальным Жизненным Принципом, а тельца — с Монадами. Различные виды телец — это то же самое, что различные классы Монад и различные царства, однако не потому, что их сущность различна, а из-за среды, в которой они находятся. Чхая — это постоянное семя, и Вейсман в своей теории наследственных зародышей очень близок к истине.

Е. П. Б. спросили, существует ли одно Эго для одного постоянного семени Чхая, одухотворяющее его в ряде инкарнаций; ее ответ был: «Нет, это Небо и Земля целуют друг друга».

Животные Души находятся во временных формах и оболочках, в которых они приобретают опыт и в которых подготавливают материалы для высшей эволюции.

[pg 593] До семилетнего возраста астральный атавистический зародыш формирует и лепит тело; после этого тело формирует Астрал.

Астрал и Ум взаимно влияют друг на друга.

Смысл отрывка в Упанишадах, где говорится, что Боги питаются людьми, заключается в том, что Высшее Эго получает свой земной опыт через Низшее.

Астральное тело.

Астрал может выходить бессознательно для человека и блуждать.

Чхая — это то же самое, что Астральное тело.

Зародыш или жизненная сущность его находится в селезенке.

«Чхая свернута в селезенке». Именно из нее формируется Астрал; он развивается в виде призрачной скручивающейся или вращающейся сущности, похожей на дым, постепенно принимая форму по мере роста. Но он не проецируется из физического тела атом за атомом. Эта последняя межмолекулярная форма — Кама-Рупа. При смерти каждая клетка и молекула испускает свою сущность, и из нее формируется Астрал Кама-Рупы; но он никогда не может выйти во время жизни.

Чхая, чтобы стать видимой, черпает из окружающей атмосферы, притягивая атомы к себе; Линга-Шарира не могла бы сформироваться в вакууме. Факт существования Астрального тела объясняет арабские и восточные сказки о джиннах, бутылочных духах и т. д.

В спиритических феноменах сходство с умершими людьми в основном вызвано воображением. Одежда таких призраков формируется из живых атомов медиума и не является настоящей одеждой, и не имеет ничего общего с одеждой медиума. «Вся одежда материализации была оплачена».

Астрал поддерживает жизнь; это резервуар или губка жизни, собирающая ее из всех окружающих природных царств, и он является посредником между царствами Пранической и физической жизни.

Жизнь не может перейти непосредственно от субъективного к объективному, ибо Природа постепенно проходит через каждую сферу. Поэтому Линга-Шарира является посредником между Праной и нашим физическим телом и накачивает жизнь.

Следовательно, селезенка — очень деликатный орган, но физическая селезенка — лишь прикрытие для настоящей селезенки.

Теперь Жизнь в действительности есть Божественность, Парабрахман. Но чтобы проявиться на Физическом Плане, она должна быть ассимилирована; а поскольку чисто физическое слишком грубо, она должна иметь посредника, а именно Астрал. Астральная материя не является однородной, а Астральный Свет — это не что иное, как тень реального Божественного Света; однако он не молекулярен.

Те (Камарупические) сущности, которые находятся ниже Деваханического Плана, пребывают в Кама-Локе и обладают лишь интеллектом, подобным обезьяньему. В четырех низших царствах нет сущностей, обладающих интеллектом, которые могли бы общаться с людьми, но элементалы обладают инстинктами, как животные. Однако Сильфы (элементалы Воздуха, самые злые существа в мире) могут общаться, но их нужно задобрить.

Призраки (Камарупические сущности) могут давать только ту информацию, которую видят непосредственно перед собой. Они видят вещи в Ауре людей, хотя сами люди могут этого не осознавать.

Земные духи — это Камалокические сущности, которые были настолько материалистичны, что не могут раствориться в течение долгого времени. У них есть лишь мерцание сознания, и они не знают, почему их удерживают; некоторые спят, некоторые сохраняют мерцание сознания и страдают от пыток.

В случае людей, у которых очень мало Девачана, большая часть сознания остается в Кама-Локе и может длиться далеко за пределами нормального периода в сто пятьдесят лет и сохраняться до следующей реинкарнации Духа. Это затем становится Обитателем Порога и сражается с новым Астралом.

Вершина Камы — это половой инстинкт, например, у идиотов есть такие желания, а также аппетит к еде и т. д., и больше ничего.

Девачан — это состояние на плане духовного сознания; Кама-Лока — это место физического сознания. Это тень животного мира и мира инстинктивных чувств. Когда сознание думает о духовных вещах, оно находится на духовном плане.

Если чьи-то мысли о природе, цветах и т. д., то сознание находится на материальном плане.

Но если мысли о еде, питье и т. д., и о страстях, то сознание находится на Камалокическом плане, который является планом чистых и простых животных инстинктов.

[Примечание корректора: Очевидные опечатки типографии были исправлены.]

Сноски

1.

The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if honest, would deny that the Upanishads, and especially the Purânas, are allegorical and symbolical; nor that there still remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual existence of Mahâtmâs—initiated Yogis and Adepts—even in this age of Kali Yuga.

2.

This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes: “You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its contents.” (Plato, Ep., ii. 312; Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 304.)

3.

Isis Unveiled, i. 287, 288.

4.

The Dialogues of Plato, translated by B. Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, iii. 523.

5.

Op. cit., p. 561.

6.

Op. cit., p. 591.

7.

This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient “physical philosopher” many cubits higher than his modern “physical” confrère, since the ultima thule of the latter is to lead mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at all—not an intelligent one at all events—and that they have sprung into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical is left to the impartial reader to decide.

8.

Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist, will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas, numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, “is the dominant and self-produced bond of the eternal continuance of things.” Alone the modern Scholar remains blind to the grand truth.

9.

Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern. For he only “confuses ... first and final causes” (which confusion is denied by those who know the spirit of ancient scholarship), whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science “powerless” to solve a single one of the final problems of Nature and “disciplined [read, modern materialistic], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problems” of the world of matter. He even doubts whether the men of present Science possess “the intellectual elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of Nature.” But for Plato and his disciples, the lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract ones; the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the great universal Archæus (Anima Mundi), is self-moving, and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.

10.

Op. cit., p. 523.

11.

Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who wrote nothing; or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo Judæus. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years b.c.), and is credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the “revealed” Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of the Commentaries on the Books of Moses, was not Aristobulus, the sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Judæus, since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.

12.

Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very fantastic writer.

13.

The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion.

14.

New Platonism and Alchemy, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7, 4.

15.

It is well-known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius had renounced the tenets of the Church—Eusebius and Jerome notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest for stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic Philosophy was as “pagan” as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an out-and-out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact, contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty.

16.

Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called De Consensu Moysis et Jesu, is mentioned by the same “trustworthy” Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsaræa, and the friend of the Christian Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known of this pseudo-work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it (Vir. Illust., § 55; and Euseb., H. E., vi. 19). The other spurious production is called the Diatesseron (or the “Harmony of the Gospels”). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly, probably, as later scholars attributed the Diatesseron to Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on its “esoteric” interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neo-platonic interpretations as “absurdities”?

17.

Op. cit., p. 7.

18.

Op. cit., iii, 524.

19.

“Imperfect knowledge” of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of the modern “working hypotheses”—as ignorant as our immediate posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their turn after exploding join the “great majority”—is perhaps a blessing in disguise.

20.

Op. cit., p. 524.

21.

Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme, by M. J. Matter, Professor of the Royal Academy of Strasburg, “It is in Pythagoras and Plato that we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism,” he says. (Vol. i, pp. 48 and 50.)

22.

Asiat. Trans., i, 579.

23.

New Platonism and Alchemy, p. 4.

24.

This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. Annales de la Propagation de la Foi.

25.

The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir, as the translator and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule) believes (i. 175).

26.

Voyage des Pélerins Bouddhistes, Vol. I.; Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen-Thsang, etc., traduit du chinois en français, par Stanislas Julien.

27.

Lao-tse, the Chinese philosopher.

28.

The Book of Ser Marco Polo, i. 318.

29.

Isis Unveiled, i. 599-601, 603, 598.

30.

Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6.

31.

The Rishis—the first group of seven in number—lived in days preceding the Vedic period. They are now known as Sages and held in reverence like demigods. But they may now be shown as something more than merely mortal Philosophers. There are other groups of ten, twelve and even twenty-one in number. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brâhmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish Bible. The Brâhmans claim to descend directly from the Rishis.

32.

Isis Unveiled, i. 90.

33.

See Münter “On the most Ancient Religions of the North before Odin.” Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, ii. 230.

34.

Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi. 6.

35.

“The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science; Herodotus informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But, Herodotus did not tell all, although he knew that the real purpose of the pyramid was very different from that which he assigns to it. Were it not for his religious scruples, he might have added that, externally, it symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illustrated also the principles of geometry, mathematics, astrology and astronomy. Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were performed the Mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the initiation scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry sarcophagus, which Professor Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, degrades into a corn-bin, was the baptismal font, upon emerging from which, the neophyte was ‘born again,’ and became an adept.” (Isis Unveiled, i. 518, 519.)

36.

Diog. Laërt., in “Democrit. Vit.”

37.

Satyric, ix. 3.

38.

Pliny, Hist. Nat.

39.

Isis Unveiled, i. 512.

40.

Op. cit., ii. 403.

41.

This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do, and many a “mysterious page” in sacred and profane history are touched on in these pages. Whether or not their explanations will be accepted—is another question.

42.

Ibid.

43.

This is incorrectly expressed. The true Adept of the “Right Hand” never punishes anyone, not even his bitterest and most dangerous enemy; he simply leaves the latter to his Karma, and Karma never fails to do so, sooner or later.

44.

Op. cit., ii. 239, 241, 240.

45.

See, in this connection, Pneumatologie des Esprits, by the Marquis de Mirville, who devotes six enormous volumes to show the absurdity of those who deny the reality of Satan and Magic, or the Occult Sciences—the two being with him synonymous.

46.

We think we see the sidereal phantom of the old Philosopher and Mystic—once of Cambridge University—Henry More, moving about in the astral mist over the old moss-covered roofs of the ancient town in which he wrote his famous letter to Glanvil about “witches.” The “soul” seems restless and indignant, as on that day of May, 1678, when the doctor complained so bitterly to the author of Sadducismus Triumphatus of Scot, Adie and Webster. “Our new inspired saints,” the soul is heard to mutter, “sworn advocates of the witches ... who against all sense and reason ... will have no Samuel but a confederate knave ... these in-blown buffoons, puffed up with ... ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity!” (See “Letter to Glanvil,” and Isis Unveiled, i. 205, 206.)

47.

Études Religieuses.

48.

Études Historiques.

49.

Mémoire read at the Académie des Inscriptions des Belles Lettres, in 1859.

50.

See Alfred Maury's Histoire des Religions de la Grèce, i. 248; and the speculations of Holzmann in Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprach forschung, ann. 1852, p. 487, sq.

51.

Creuzer's Introduction des Mystères, iii. 456.

52.

The later Nabathæans adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and the Sabæans, honoured John the Baptist, and used Baptism. (See Isis Unveiled, ii. 127; Munck, Palestine, p. 525; Dunlap, Sod, the Son of Man, etc.)

53.

i. 535.

54.

By Hargrave Jennings.

55.

See De Mirville's Pneumatologie, iii. 267 et seq.

56.

Psellus, 4: in Cory's Ancient Fragments, 269.

57.

Isis Unveiled, i, 535, 536.

58.

The forty-two Sacred Books of the Egyptians, mentioned by Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest Abammon, attributes 1,200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho 36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a Neoplatonist and Theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely historical personage,” with whom “none of the later native historians can be compared” (see Égypte, i. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo-Manetho, as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific prejudices against Magic and the Occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests. However, none of the Archæologists doubt for a moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty-one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period by a clearly-traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law-giver. “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen. If the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which Diogenes Laërtius carries back the records of the priests, he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations, they must have extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn, however,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period treated of myriads of years.” (Égypte, i. 15; Isis Unveiled, i. 33.)

59.

These details are taken from Pneumatologie, iii. pp. 204, 205.

60.

Égypte, p. 143; Isis Unveiled, i. 625.

61.

Strom., VI. vii. The following paragraph is paraphrased from the same chapter.

62.

See Pneumatologie, iii. 207. Therefore Empedocles is called κωλυθάνεμος, the “dominator of the wind.” Strom., VI. iii.

63.

Ibid., iv.

64.

Summarised from Pneumatologie, iii. 209.

65.

Loc. cit.

66.

Op. cit., iii. 208.

67.

The English speaking people who spell the name of Noah's disrespectful son “Ham” have to be reminded that the right spelling is “Kham” or “Cham.”

68.

Black Magic, or Sorcery, is the evil result obtained in any shape or way through the practice of Occult Arts; hence it has to be judged only by its effects. The name of neither Ham nor Cain, when pronounced, has ever killed any one; whereas, if we have to believe that same Clemens Alexandrinus who traces the teacher of every Occultist, outside of Christianity, to the Devil, the name of Jehovah (pronounced Jevo and in a peculiar way) had the effect of killing a man at a distance. The mysterious Schemham-phorasch was not always used for holy purposes by the Kabalists, especially since the Sabbath or Saturday, sacred to Saturn or the evil Shani, became—with the Jews—sacred to “Jehovah.”

69.

Khoemnis, the pre-historic city, may or may not have been built by Noah's son, but it was not his name that was given to the town, but that of the Mystery Goddess Khoemnu or Khoemnis (Greek form); the deity that was created by the ardent fancy of the neophyte, who was thus tantalised during his “twelve labours” of probation before his final initiation. Her male counterpart is Khem. The city of Choemnis or Khemmis (to-day Akhmem) was the chief seat of the God Khem. The Greeks identifying Khem with Pan, called this city “Panopolis.”

70.

Pneumatologie, iii. 210. This looks more like pious vengeance than philology. The picture, however, seems incomplete, as the author ought to have added to the “chimney” a witch flying out of it on a broomstick.

71.

How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed it? This is scarcely logical.

72.

Loc. cit., p. 210.

73.

Matthew, xvi. 20.

74.

Mark, v. 43.

75.

Mark, iv. 11, 12.

76.

Is it not evident that the words: “lest at any time they should be converted (or: ‘lest haply they should turn again’—as in the revised version) and their sins be forgiven them”—do not at all mean to imply that Jesus feared that through repentance any outsider, or “them that are without,” should escape damnation, as the literal dead-letter sense plainly shows—but quite a different thing? Namely, “lest any of the profane should by understanding his preaching, undisguised by parable, get hold of some of the secret teachings and mysteries of Initiation—and even of Occult powers? ‘Be converted’ is, in other words, to obtain a knowledge belonging exclusively to the Initiated: ‘and their sins be forgiven them,’ that is, their sins would fall upon the illegal revealer, on those who had helped the unworthy to reap there where they have never laboured to sow, and had given them, thereby, the means of escaping on this earth their deserved Karma, which must thus re-act on the revealer, who, instead of good, did harm and failed.”

77.

New Platonism and Alchemy, 1869, pp. 7, 9.

78.

vii. 6.

79.

History is full of proofs of the same. Had not Anaxagoras enunciated the great truth taught in the Mysteries, viz., that the sun was surely larger than the Peloponnesus, he would not have been persecuted and nearly put to death by the fanatical mob. Had that other rabble which was raised against Pythagoras understood what the mysterious Sage of Crotona meant by giving out his remembrance of having been the “Son of Mercury”—God of the Secret Wisdom—he would not have been forced to fly for his life; nor would Socrates have been put to death, had he kept secret the revelations of his divine Daimon. He knew how little his century—save those initiated—would understand his meaning, had he given out all he knew of the moon. Thus he limited his statement to an allegory, which is now proven to have been more scientific than was hitherto believed. He maintained that the moon was inhabited and that the lunar beings lived in profound, vast and dark valleys, our satellite being airless and without any atmosphere outside such profound valleys; this, disregarding the revelation full of meaning for the few only, must be so of necessity, if there is any atmosphere on our bright Selene at all. The facts recorded in the secret annals of the Mysteries had to remain veiled under penalty of death.

80.

Stromateis, xii.

81.

See Homilies 7, in Levit., quoted in the Source of Measures, p. 307.

82.

Origen: Huet., Origeniana, 167; Franck, 121; quoted from Dunlap's Sôd, p. 176.

83.

Isis Unveiled, ii. 350.

84.

The materialistic “law-givers,” the critics and Sadducees who have tried to tear to shreds the doctrines and teachings of the great Asiatic Masters past and present—no scholars in the modern sense of the word—would do well to ponder over these words. No doubt that doctrines and secret teachings had they been invented and written in Oxford and Cambridge would be more brilliant outwardly. Would they equally answer to universal truths and facts, is the next question however.

85.

iii. fol. 1526, quoted in Myer's Qabbalah, p. 102.

86.

New-Platonism and Alchemy, p. 6.

87.

i. 2.

88.

lxiv. 10.

89.

The key is shown to be “in the source of measures originating the British inch and the ancient cubit” as the author tries to prove.

90.

The word as a plural might have better solved the mystery. God is ever-present; if he were ever-active he could no longer be an infinite God—nor ever-present in his limitation.

91.

The author is evidently a Mason of the way of thinking of General Pike. So long as the American and English Masons will reject the “Creative Principle” of the “Grand Orient” of France they will remain in the dark.

92.

Source of Measures, pp. 308, 309.

93.

In his Pneumatologie, in Vol. iv., pp. 105-112, the Marquis de Mirville claims the knowledge of the heliocentric system—earlier than Galileo—for Pope Urban VIII. The author goes further. He tries to show that famous Pope, not as the persecutor but as one persecuted by Galileo, and calumniated by the Florentine Astronomer into the bargain. If so, so much the worse for the Latin Church, since her Popes, knowing of it, still preserved silence upon this most important fact, either to screen Joshua or their own infallibility. One can understand well that the Bible having been so exalted over all the other systems, and its alleged monotheism depending upon the silence preserved, nothing remained of course but to keep quiet over its symbolism, thus allowing all its blunders to be fathered on its God.

94.

Op. cit., App. vii. p. 296. The writer feels happy to find this fact now mathematically demonstrated. When it was stated in Isis Unveiled that Jehovah and Saturn were one and the same with Adam Kadmon, Cain, Adam and Eve, Abel, Seth, etc., and that all were convertible symbols in the Secret Doctrine (see Vol. ii. pp. 446, 448, 464 et seq.); that they answered, in short, to secret numerals and stood for more than one meaning in the Bible as in other doctrines—the author's statements remained unnoticed. Isis had failed to appear under a scientific form, and by giving too much, in fact, gave very little to satisfy the enquirer. But now, if mathematics and geometry, besides the evidence of the Bible and Kabalah are good for anything, the public must find itself satisfied. No fuller, more scientifically given proof can be found to show that Cain is the transformation of an Elohim (the Sephira Binah) into Jah-Veh (or God-Eve) androgyne, and that Seth is the Jehovah male, than in the combined discoveries of Seyffarth, Knight, etc., and finally in Mr. Ralston Skinner's most erudite work. The further relations of these personifications of the first human races, in their gradual development, will be given later on in the text.

95.

The writings extant in olden times often personified Wisdom as an emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of Greece; also the female divinities, Neïtha, Metis, Athena, and the Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia. The Samaritan Pentateuch denominated the Book of Genesis, Akamouth, or Wisdom, and two remnants of old treatises, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Jesus, relate to the same matters. The Book of Mashalim—the Discourses or Proverbs of Solomon—thus personifies Wisdom as the auxiliary of the Creator. In the Secret Wisdom of the East that auxiliary is found collectively in the first emanations of Primeval Light, the Seven Dhyáni-Chohans, who have been shown to be identical with the “Seven Spirits of the Presence” of the Roman Catholics.

96.

New Platonism and Alchemy, p. 6.

97.

ii. 317. 318. Many verbal alterations from the original text of Isis Unveiled were made by H. P. B. in her quotations therefrom, and these are followed throughout.

98.

Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times during his mystic life; Porphyry asserts that Apollonius of Tyana was thus united four times to his deity—a statement which we believe to be a mistake, since Apollonius was a Nirmânakâya (divine incarnation—not Avatâra)—and he (Porphyry) only once, when over sixty years of age. Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to man), Theopathy (or “assimilation of divine nature”), and Theopneusty (inspiration, or rather the mysterious power to hear orally the teachings of a God) have never been rightly understood.

99.

Kârana Sharîra is the “causal” body and is sometimes said to be the “personal God.” And so it is, in one sense.

100.

This would be in one sense Self-worship.

101.

“The Gods exist,” said Epicurus, “but they are not what the hoi polloi [the multitude] suppose them to be. He is not an infidel or atheist who denies the existence of Gods whom the multitude worship, but he is such who fastens on the Gods the opinions of the multitude.”

102.

Esoteric, as exoteric, Buddhism rejects the theory that Gautama was an incarnation or Avatâra of Vishnu, but teaches the doctrine as herein explained. Every man has in him the materials, if not the conditions, for theophanic intercourse and Theopneusty, the inspiring “God” being, however, in every case, his own Higher Self, or divine prototype.

103.

One entirely and absolutely purified, and having nothing in common with earth except his body.

104.

Mândûkyopanishad, 4.

105.

Acts, viii. 10 (Revised Version).

106.

See the explanations given on the subject in “The Elixir of Life,” by G. M. (From a Chelâ's Diary), Five Years of Theosophy.

107.

I. Cor., xv. 47, 50.

108.

I. Cor., iii. 16. Has the reader ever meditated upon the suggestive words, often pronounced by Jesus and his Apostles? “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father ... is perfect” (Matt., v. 48), says the Great Master. The words are, “as perfect as your Father which is in heaven,” being interpreted as meaning God. Now the utter absurdity of any man becoming as perfect as the infinite, all-perfect omniscient and omnipresent Deity, is too apparent. If you accept it in such a sense, Jesus is made to utter the greatest fallacy. What was Esoterically meant is, “Your Father who is above the material and astral man, the highest Principle (save the Monad) within man, his own personal God, or the God of his own personality, of whom he is the ‘prison’ and the ‘temple.’ ” “If thou wilt be perfect (i.e., an Adept and Initiate) go and sell that thou hast” (Matt., xix. 21). Every man who desired to become a neophyte, a chelâ, then, as now, had to take the vow of poverty. The “Perfect,” was the name given to the Initiates of every denomination. Plato calls them by that term. The Essenes had their “Perfect,” and Paul plainly states that they, the Initiates, can only speak before other Adepts. “We speak wisdom among them [only] that are perfect” (I. Cor. ii. 6.)

109.

John, i. 21.

110.

John, iii. “Born” from above, viz., from his Monad or divine Ego, the seventh Principle, which remains till the end of the Kalpa, the nucleus of, and at the same time the overshadowing Principle, as the Kâranâtmâ (Causal Soul) of the personality in every rebirth. In this sense, the sentence “born anew” means “descends from above,” the last two words having no reference to heaven or space, neither of which can be limited or located, since one is a state and the other infinite, hence having no cardinal points. (See New Testament, Revised Version, loc. cit.)

111.

This can have no reference to Christian Baptism, since there was none in the days of Nicodemus and he could not therefore know anything of it, even though a “Master.”

112.

This word, translated in the New Testament “world” to suit the official interpretation, means rather an “age” (as shown in the Revised Version) or one of the periods during the Manvantara, a Kalpa, or Æon. Esoterically the sentence would read: “He who shall reach, through a series of births and Karmic law, that state in which Humanity shall find itself after the Seventh Round and the Seventh Race, when comes Nirvâna, Moksha, and when man becomes ‘equal unto the Angels’ or Dhyân Chohans, is a ‘son of the resurrection’ and ‘can die no more’; then there will be no marriage, as there will be no difference of sexes”—a result of our present materiality and animalism.

113.

Luke, xx. 27-38.

114.

John, ix. 2, 3.

115.

The conscious Ego, or Fifth Principle Manas, the vehicle of the divine Monad or “God.”

116.

Some Symbologists, relying on the correspondence of numbers and the symbols of certain things and personages, refer these “secrets” to the mystery of generation. But it is more than this. The glyph of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” has no doubt a phallic and sexual element in it, as has the “Woman and the Serpent”; but it has also a psychical and spiritual significance. Symbols are meant to yield more than one meaning.

117.

Wisdom, xi. 21. Douay version.

118.

Ecclesiasticus, i. 9. Douay version.

119.

Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, i. 361.

120.

Isis Unveiled, i. 6, 7.

121.

«Синезий упоминает каменные книги, которые он нашел в храме Мемфиса, на одной из которых была выгравирована следующая фраза: “Одна природа радует другую, одна природа побеждает другую, одна природа управляет другой, и все они суть одно”».

«Внутренняя беспокойность материи воплощена в изречении Гермеса: “Действие — это жизнь Пта”; а Орфей называет природу πολυμήχανος μάτηρ, “матерью, создающей многое”, или изобретательной, придумывающей, творческой матерью». — Разоблаченная Изида, I, 257.

122.

Source of Measures, p. x.

123.

Masonic Review, July, 1886.

124.

See Source of Measures, pp. 47-50, et pass.

125.

See Cary's translation, pp. 322, 323.

126.

Exodus, xxxiv. 29, 33.

127.

Op. cit., V. vii.

128.

The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia, under “Gnosticism.”

129.

In the Ferouers and Devs of Jacobi (Letters F. and D.) the word “ferouer” is explained in the following manner: The Ferouer is a part of the creature (whether man or animal) of which it is the type and which it survives. It is the Nous of the Greeks, therefore divine and immortal, and thus can hardly be the Devil or the satanic copy De Mirville would represent it (see Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, Vol. XXXVII. p. 623, and chap. xxxix. p. 749). Foucher contradicts him entirely. The Ferouer was never the “principle of sensations,” but always referred to the most divine and pure portion of Man's Ego—the spiritual principle. Anquetil says that the Ferouer is the purest portion of man's soul. The Persian Dev is the antithesis of the Ferouer, for the Dev has been transformed by Zoroaster into the Genius of Evil (whence the Christian Devil), but even the Dev is only finite; for having become possessed of the soul of man by usurpation, it will have to leave it at the great day of Retribution. The Dev obsesses the soul of the defunct for three days, during which the soul wanders about the spot at which it was forcibly separated from its body; the Ferouer ascends to the region of eternal Light. It was an unfortunate idea that made the noble Marquis de Mirville imagine the Ferouer to be a “satanic copy” of a divine original. By calling all the Gods of the Pagans—Apollo, Osiris, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Bel, etc., the “Ferouers of Christ and of the chief Angels,” he merely exhibits the God and the Angels he would honour as inferior to the Pagan Gods, as man is inferior to his Soul and Spirit; since the Ferouer is the immortal part of the mortal being of which it is the type and which it survives. Perchance the poor author is unconsciously prophetic; and Apollo, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Osiris, etc., are destined to survive and replace—as eternal cosmic verities—the evanescent fictions about the God, Christ and Angels of the Latin Church!

130.

See George Smith's Babylon and other works.

131.

This is as fanciful as it is arbitrary. Where is the Hindu or Buddhist who would speak of his “Crucified”?

132.

Op. cit., iv. 237.

133.

Loc. cit., 250.

134.

«В.: Кто стучится в дверь?

О.: Добрый пастух.

В.: Кто предшествовал тебе?

О.: Три разбойника.

В.: Кто следует за тобой?

О.: Три убийцы», и т. д., и т. д.

Это диалог, который происходил между жрецами-инициаторами и кандидатами на посвящение во время мистерий, разыгрывавшихся в древнейших святилищах гималайских горных твердынь. Церемония до сих пор совершается в одном из самых древних храмов в уединенном месте Непала. Она возникла вместе с Мистериями первого Кришны, перешла к Первому Тиртханкаре и закончилась Буддой, и называется обрядом Курукшетры, разыгрываемым как память о великой битве и смерти божественного Адепта. Это не масонство, а посвящение в Оккультные учения того Героя — Оккультизм в чистом виде.

135.

Book of Enoch, Archbishop Laurence's translation. Introduction, p. v.

136.

The Book of Enoch was unknown to Europe for a thousand years, when Bruce found in Abyssinia some copies of it in Ethiopic; it was translated by Archbishop Laurence in 1821, from the text in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

137.

Op. cit., p. xx.

138.

Loc. cit.

139.

Op. cit., p. xiv., note.

140.

Op. cit., p. xxxv.

141.

Op. cit., p. xiii.

142.

The Seventh Principle, the First Emanation.

143.

Op. cit., pp. xxxvii. and xl.

144.

Op. cit., pp. xl. and li.

145.

Who stands for the “Solar” or Manvantaric Year.

146.

Op. cit., pp. xli., xlii.

147.

Op. cit., p. xlviii.

148.

Op. cit., p. xxiii.

149.

Loc. cit.

150.

xcii. 9.

151.

Op. cit., xcii. 4.

152.

Op. cit., xcii. 4-7.

153.

At the close of every Root-Race there comes a cataclysm, in turn by fire or water. Immediately after the “Fall into generation” the dross of the third Root-Race—those who fell into sensuality by falling off from the teaching of the Divine Instructors—were destroyed, after which the Fourth Root-Race originated, at the end of which took place the last Deluge. (See the “Sons of God” mentioned in Isis Unveiled, 593 et seq.)

154.

Op. cit., xcii. 11.

155.

Op. cit., xcii. 7, 11, 13, 15.

156.

Op. cit., note, p. 152.

157.

Those interpolations and alterations are found almost in every case where figures are given—especially whenever the numbers eleven and twelve come in—as these are all made (by the Christians) to relate to the numbers of Apostles, and Tribes, and Patriarchs. The translator of the Ethiopic text—Archbishop Laurence—attributes them generally to “mistakes of the transcriber” whenever the two texts, the Paris and the Bodleian MSS., differ. We fear it is no mistake, in most cases.

158.

Op. cit., lxxxviii. 99, 100.

159.

Loc. cit., 94. This passage, as will be presently shown, has led to a very curious discovery.

160.

In the profane history of Gautama Buddha he dies at the good old age of eighty, and passes off from life to death peacefully with all the serenity of a great saint, as Barthélemy St. Hilaire has it. Not so in the Esoteric and true interpretation which reveals the real sense of the profane and allegorical statement that makes Gautama, the Buddha, die very unpoetically from the effects of too much pork, prepared for him by Tsonda. How one who preached that the killing of animals was the greatest sin, and who was a perfect vegetarian, could die from eating pork, is a question that is never asked by our Orientalists, some of whom made (as now do many charitable missionaries in Ceylon) great fun at the alleged occurrence. The simple truth is that the said rice and pork are purely allegorical. Rice stands for “forbidden fruit,” like Eve's “apple,” and means Occult knowledge with the Chinese and Tibetans; and “pork” for Brâhmanical teachings—Vishnu having assumed in his first Avatâra the form of a boar, in order to raise the earth on the surface of the waters of space. It is not, therefore, from “pork” that Buddha died, but for having divulged some of the Brâhmanical mysteries, after which, seeing the bad effects brought on some unworthy people by the revelation, he preferred, instead of availing himself of Nirvâna, to leave his earthly form, remaining still in the sphere of the living, in order to help humanity to progress. Hence his constant reincarnations in the hierarchy of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas, among other bounties. Such is the Esoteric explanation. The life of Gautama will be more fully discussed later on.

161.

Op. cit., cv. 21.

162.

In the Bible (Genesis, iv and v) there are three distinct Enochs (Kanoch or Chanoch)—the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given, the first one being left without further notice.

163.

The eternal and incessant “in-breathing and out-breathing of Parabrahman” or Nature, the Universe in Space, whether during Manvantara or Pralaya.

164.

Op. cit., iii. 1.

165.

Op. cit., 30.

166.

Op. cit., 32.

167.

Those who are aware that the term Christos was applied by the Gnostics to the Higher Ego (the ancient Pagan Greek Initiates doing the same), will readily understand the allusion. Christos was said to be cut off from the lower Ego, Chrestos, after the final and supreme Initiation, when the two became blended in one; Chrestos being conquered and resurrected in the glorified Christos.—Franck, Die Kabbala, 75; Dunlap, Sôd, Vol. II.

168.

Stromateis, I. xiii.

169.

Op. cit., II. viii.

170.

Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at his death, or we should rather say his translation; for he did not die as others do, but having suddenly disappeared, while a dazzling light filled the cavern with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence. When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual semi-darkness of the gloomy cave—then only, says Ginsburg, “the disciples of Israel perceived that the lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His biographers tell us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the preparation for his funeral, and at his interment, when the coffin was lowered into the deep cave prepared for it, a flame broke forth and a voice mighty and majestic pronounced these words: “This is he who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to shake!”

171.

Pockocke, maybe, was not altogether wrong in deriving the German Heaven, Himmel, from Himâlaya; nor can it be denied that it is the Hindu Kailâsa (Heaven) that is the father of the Greek Heaven (Koilon), and of the Latin Cœlum.

172.

See Pockocke's India in Greece, and his derivation of Mount Parnassus from Parnasa, the leaf and branch huts of the Hindu ascetics, half shrine and half habitation. “Part of the Par-o-Pamisus (the hill of Bamian), is called Parnassus. ‘These mountains are called Devanica, because they are so full of Devas or Gods, called “Gods of the Earth,” Bhu Devas. They lived, according to the Purânas, in bowers or huts, called Parnasas, because they were made of leaves’ (Parnas),” p. 302.

173.

Rawlinson is justly very confident of an Âryan and Vedic influence on the early mythology and history of Babylon and Chaldæa.

174.

This is a Secret Doctrine affirmation, and may or may not be accepted. Only Abrahm, Isaac and Judah resemble terribly the Hindu Brahmâ Ikshvâku and Yadu.

175.

It is said in The Gnostics and their Remains, by C. W. King (p. 13), with regard to the names of Brahmâ and Abram; “This figure of the man, Seir Aupin, consists of 243 numbers, being the numerical value of the letters in the name ‘Abram’ signifying the different orders in the celestial Hierarchies. In fact the names Abram and Brahmâ are equivalent in numerical value.” Thus to one acquainted with Esoteric Symbolism, it does not seem at all strange to find in the Loka-pâlas (the four cardinal and intermediate points of the compass personified by eight Hindu Gods) Indra's elephant, named Abhra—(mâtanga) and his wife Abhramu. Abhra is in a way a Wisdom Deity, since it is this elephant's head that replaced that of Ganesha (Ganapati) the God of Wisdom, cut off by Shiva. Now Abhra means “cloud,” and it is also the name of the city where Abram is supposed to have resided—when read backwards—“Arba (Kirjath) the city of four ... Abram is Abra with an appended m final, and Abra read backward is Arba” (Key to the Hebrew Egyptian Mystery). The author might have added that Abra meaning in Sanskrit “in, or of, the clouds,” the cosmo-astronomical symbol of Abram becomes still plainer. All of these ought to be read in their originals, in Sanskrit.

176.

Before these theories and speculations—we are willing to admit they are such—are rejected, the following few points ought to be explained, (1) Why, after leaving Egypt, was the patriarch's name changed by Jehovah from Abram to Abraham. (2) Why Sarai becomes on the same principle Sarah (Gen., xvii.). (3) Whence the strange coincidence of names? (4) Why should Alexander Polyhistor say that Abraham was born at Kamarina or Uria, a city of soothsayers, and invented Astronomy? (5) “The Abrahamic recollections go back at least three millenniums beyond the grandfather of Jacob,” says Bunsen (Egypt's Place in History, v. 35.)

177.

Isis Unveiled, ii. 35.

178.

See Isis Unveiled, ii. 218-300. Gematria is formed by a metathesis from the Greek word γραμματεία; Notaricon may be compared to stenography; Temura is permutation—a way of dividing the alphabet and shifting letters.

179.

De Vita Pythag.

180.

We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the “Books of Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in the works of a number of ancient and mediæval philosophical authors. Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova's Rosarium Philosoph., Francesco Arnuphi's Opus de Lapide, Hermes Trismegistus' Tractatus de Transmutatione Metallorum and Tabula Smaragdina, and above all the treatise of Raymond Lully, Ab Angelis Opus Divinum de Quinta Essentia.

181.

Exodus, xxv. 40.

182.

Sub voce “Numbers.”

183.

See Johannes Meursius, Denarius Pythagoricus.

184.

Ragon, Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 426, note.

185.

Ibid., p. 432, note.

186.

Extracted from Ragon, Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 427, note.

187.

Summarised from Ragon, ibid., p. 428, note.

188.

Рагон упоминает любопытный факт, что первые четыре числа в немецком языке названы в честь элементов.

«Ein, или один, означает воздух, элемент, который, будучи всегда в движении, проникает в материю повсюду, и чей непрерывный прилив и отлив является универсальным проводником жизни.

«Zwei, два, происходит от старого немецкого Zweig, означающего зародыш, плодовитость; оно означает землю, плодовитую мать всего.

«Drei, три, — это trienos греков, означающее воду, откуда происходят Морские боги, Тритоны; и трезубец, эмблема Нептуна — вода или море в целом называются Амфитритой (окружающая вода).

«Vier, четыре, число, означающее на бельгийском огонь... Именно в четверице находится первая твердая фигура, универсальный символ бессмертия, Пирамида, “первый слог которой означает огонь”. Лисид и Тимей из Локр утверждали, что нет такой вещи, которую можно было бы назвать, у которой не было бы четверицы в качестве корня... Изобретательная и мистическая идея, которая привела к почитанию троицы и треугольника, была применена к числу четыре и его фигуре: говорили, что оно выражает живое существо, 1, проводник треугольника 4, проводник Бога, или человека, несущего в себе божественный принцип».

Наконец, «древние представляли мир числом пять. Диодор объясняет это тем, что это число представляет землю, огонь, воду, воздух и эфир или spiritus. Отсюда происхождение Pente (пять) и Pan (Бог), означающего по-гречески всё». (Сравните Рагон, op. cit., стр. 428-430.) Индусским Оккультистам предоставляется объяснить связь этого санскритского слова Pancha (пять) с элементами, так как греческое Pente имеет своим корнем санскритский термин.

189.

The system of the so-called Senzar characters is still more wonderful and difficult, since each letter is made to yield several meanings, a sign placed at the commencement showing the true meaning.

190.

Ragon, op. cit., p. 431, note.

191.

The Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue or vice, and stands also for the numeral 150 and with a dash over the letter Y for 150,000.

192.

Tradition, chap. on “Numbers.”

193.

This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy in one moment whole armies; it is mentioned in the Râmâyana, the Purânas and elsewhere.

194.

Matthew, viii. 30-34.

195.

Dogmatic Theology, iii. 345.

196.

viii. 9, 10.

197.

Adv. Celsum.

198.

Eccles. Hist., i. 140.

199.

Contra Hæreses, I. xxiii. 1-4.

200.

Contra Hæreses, ii. 1-6.

201.

Op. cit., ii. 337.

202.

Десять — это совершенное число Верховного Бога среди «проявленных» божеств, ибо число 1 является символом Вселенской Единицы, или мужского принципа в Природе, а число 0 — женским символом Хаоса, Бездны; эти двое образуют таким образом символ андрогинной природы, а также полную ценность солнечного года, которая также была ценностью Иеговы и Еноха. Десять у Пифагора было символом Вселенной; также Еноса, сына Сифа, или «Сына Человеческого», который стоит как символ солнечного года из 365 дней, и чьи годы поэтому также даны как 365. В египетской символике Абраксас был Солнцем, «Владыкой Небес».

Круг — это символ единого Непроявленного Принципа, плоскость фигуры которого бесконечна вечно, и он пересекается диаметром только во время Манвантар.

203.

I. Cor., ii. 6-8.

204.

Compare Taylor's Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.

205.

Isis Unveiled, ii. 89.

206.

Op. cit., ii. 395.

207.

Quoted by De Mirville, Op. cit., vi. 41 and 42.

208.

Mr. St. George Lane-Fox has admirably expressed the idea in his eloquent appeal to the many rival schools and societies in India. “I feel sure,” he said, “that the prime motive, however dimly perceived, by which you, as the promoters of these movements, were actuated, was a revolt against the tyrannical and almost universal establishment throughout all existing social and so-called religious institutions of a usurped authority in some external form supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority, the indwelling spirit of truth revealed to each individual soul, true conscience in fact, that supreme source of all human wisdom and power which elevates man above the level of the brute.” (To the Members of the Ârya Samâj, the Theosophical Society, Brahmo and Hindu Samâj and other Religious and Progressive Societies in India.)

209.

Revelation, ii. 6.

210.

This “art” is not common jugglery, as some define it now: it is a kind of psychological jugglery, if jugglery at all, where fascination and glamour are used as means of producing illusions. It is hypnotism on a large scale.

211.

The author asserts in this his Christian persuasion.

212.

Magnetic passes, evidently, followed by a trance and sleep.

213.

“Elementals” used by the highest Adept to do mechanical, not intellectual work, as a physicist uses gases and other compounds.

214.

Quoted from De Mirville, op. cit., vi. 43.

215.

Ibid., vi. 45.

216.

Ibid., p. 46.

217.

Amédée Fleury, Rapports de St. Paul avec Sénèque, ii. 100. The whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.

218.

But we can never agree with the author “that rites and ritual and formal worship and prayers are of the absolute necessity of things,” for the external can develop and grow and receive worship only at the expense of, and to the detriment of, the internal, the only real and true.

219.

H. Jennings, op. cit., pp. 37, 38.

220.

See Isis Unveiled, ii. 574.

221.

xi. 26.

222.

Art., by Dr. A. Wilder, in Evolution.

223.

Op. cit., p. 262.

224.

In its most extensive meaning, the Sanskrit word has the same literal sense as the Greek term; both imply “revelation,” by no human agent, but through the “receiving of the sacred drink.” In India the initiated received the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped to liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from the Brâhmanical Vaidic rites, and the latter from the Ante-Vaidic religious Mysteries—primitive Wisdom Philosophy.

225.

It is needless to state that the Gospel according to John was not written by John, but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the Neoplatonic school.

226.

Ibid., loc. cit. The fact that Peter persecuted the “Apostle to the Gentiles” under that name, does not necessarily imply that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse. Theodoret and Chrysostom, the earliest and most prolific commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul and to state that between them passed frequent messages. The former, as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the “antithesis of the Gnosis” (1. Epistle to Timothy), must have been a sore thorn in the side of the apostle. There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of Simon Magus.

227.

Taylor's Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, Wilder's ed., p. x.

228.

ii. 91-94.

229.

Bunsen, Egypt's Place in History, v. 90.

230.

Ibid.

231.

Stele, p. 44.

232.

See Dowson's Hindu Classical Dict., sub voc., “Pîtha-sthânaru.”

233.

See Preface to St. Matthew's Gospel, Baronius, i. 752, quoted in De Mirville, vi. 63. Jerome is the Father who having found the authentic and original Evangel (the Hebrew text), by Matthew the Apostle-publican, in the library of Cæsarea, “written by the hand of Matthew” (Hieronymus: De Viris, Illust. Chap. iii.)—as he himself admits—set it down as heretical, and substituted for it his own Greek text. And it is also he who perverted the text in the Book of Job to enforce belief in the resurrection in flesh (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. ii. pp. 181 and 182, et seq.), quoting in support the most learned authorities.

234.

Де Мирвиль приводит следующий захватывающий отчет о «состязании».

«Иоанн, побуждаемый, как говорит нам св. Иероним, всеми церквями Азии провозгласить более торжественно [перед лицом чудес Аполлония] божественность Иисуса Христа, после долгой молитвы со своими учениками на горе Патмос и будучи в экстазе от божественного Духа, заставил услышать среди грома и молнии свое знаменитое In Principio erat Verbum. Когда этот возвышенный экстаз, из-за которого его назвали “Сыном Грома”, прошел, Аполлоний был вынужден отступить и исчезнуть. Таково было его поражение, менее кровавое, но столь же тяжелое, как поражение Симона Волхва». (“Маг-Теург”, VI, 63). Что касается нас, мы никогда не слышали об экстазе, производящем гром и молнию, и мы в недоумении относительно смысла.

235.

This is the old, old story. Who of us, Theosophists, but knows by bitter personal experience what clerical hatred, malice and persecution can do in this direction; to what an extent of falsehood, calumny and cruelty these feelings can go, even in our modern day, and what exemplars of Christ-like charity His alleged and self-constituted servants have shown themselves to be!

236.

Isis Unveiled, ii. 342.

237.

Loc. cit., ii. 343, 344.

238.

Pneumatologie, vi. 62.

239.

Les Apologistes Chrétiens au Second Siècle, p. 106.

240.

Pneumatologie, vi, 62.

241.

Many are they who do not know: hence, they do not believe in them.

242.

Just so. Apollonius, during a lecture he was delivering at Ephesus before an audience of many thousands, perceived the murder of the Emperor Domitian in Rome and notified it at the very moment it was taking place, to the whole town; and Swedenborg, in the same manner, saw from Gothenburg the great fire at Stockholm and told it to his friends, no telegraph being in use in those days.