1475 Therefore it is said in the Purânas that the sight at night of Dhruva, the polar star, and of the celestial Porpoise (Shishumâra, a constellation) "expiates whatever sin has been committed during the day." (Ibid., p. 306.) The fact is that the rays of the four stars in the "circle of perpetual apparition"—the Agni, Mahendra, Kashyapa, and Dhruva, placed in the tail of Ursa Minor (Shishumâra)—focussed in a certain way and on a certain object, produce extraordinary results. The Astro-magians of India will understand what is meant.
1476 Ibid., iii. 15.
1477 Dowson's HinduClassicalDictionary, subvoc. "Shiva," p. 298.
1478 Vishnu Purâna, op. cit., ii. 78.
1479 In the Râmâyana it is Bâla-Râma, Krishna's elder brother, who does this.
1480 With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Purânas that his (spiritual) progeny, createdinhimbyBrahmâ, is not confined to either the seven Kumâras or the eleven Rudras, etc., but "comprehends infinite numbers of beings inpersonandequipmentsliketheir (virgin) father. Alarmed at their fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahmâ desires his son Rudra to form creatures of a different and mortal nature." Rudra refusingtocreate, desists, etc., hence Rudra is the first rebel. (Linga, Vâyu, Matsya, and other Purânas.)
1481 Diti is shown to have been thus frustrated in the Dvapara Yuga, during that period when the Fourth Race was flourishing.
1482 Notwithstanding the terrible, and evidently purposed, confusion of Manus, Rishis, and their progeny in the Purânas, one thing is made clear: there have been and there will be seven Rishis in every Root-Race, called also Manvantara in the sacred books, just as there are fourteen Manus in every Round, the presiding Gods, the Rishis and sons of the Manus, being identical. (See VishnuPurâna, III. i; Wilson's Trans., iii. 19.) Six Manvantaras are given, the seventh being our own, in the VishnuPurâna. The VayuPurâna furnishes the nomenclature of the sons of the fourteen Manus in every Manvantara, and the sons of the seven Sages or Rishis. The latter are the progeny of the Progenitors of mankind. All the Purânas speak of the seven Prajâpatis of this period or Round.
1483 "Châkshusha was the Manu of the sixth period [Third Round and Third Race], in which Indra was Manojava"—Mantradruma in the BhâgavataPurâna. (VislinuPurâna, Wilson's Trans., iii. 12.) As there is a perfect analogy between the Great Round (Mahâkalpa), each of the seven Rounds, and each of the seven great Races in every one of the Rounds—therefore, lndra of the sixth period, or Third Round, corresponds to the close of the Third Race, at the time of the Fall or the separation of sexes. Rudra, as the father of the Maruts, has many points of contact with Indra, the Marutvân, or "Lord of the Maruts." Rudra is said to have received his name because of his weeping. Hence Brahmâ called him Rudra; but heweptyetseventimesmoreandsoobtainedsevenothernames—of which he uses one during each "period."
1484 Ibid., ii. 231.
1485 In VishnuPurâna, Book II. Chap. iv. (Wilson, ii. 205), it is stated that the "Earth," "with its continents, mountains, oceans, and exterior shell, is fiftycrores [five hundred millions] of Yojanas in extent"; to which the translator remarks: "Thiscomprisestheplanetaryspheres; for the diameter of the seven zones and oceans—each ocean being of the same diameter as the continent it encloses, and each successive continent being twice the diameter of that which precedes it—amounts to but two crores or fifty-four lakhs. . . . 'Whenever any contradictions in different Purânas are observed, they are to be ascribed . . . to differences of Kalpas and thelike.'" "The like" ought to read "occult meaning," an explanation which is withheld by the commentator, who wrote for exoteric sectarian purposes, and was misunderstood by the translator for various other reasons, the least of which is—ignorance of the Esoteric Philosophy.
1486 The Phœnix, although generally connected with the Solar Cycle of 600 years—the Western cycle of the Greeks and other nations—is a generic symbol for several kinds of cycles, ciphers being taken out or more added according to which cycle is meant.
1487 See BookofAli, Russian transl.
1488 The tense is past, because the book is allegorical, and has to veil the truths it contains.
1493 ViedeNotreSeigneurJésus-Christ, Introduction; quoted by De Mirville, Pneumatologie, iv. 50.
1494 See Suidas, sub voc."%Hlio~".
1495 Pliny, Hist.Nat., vii. 56.
1496 "Menses in quinos dies descripserunt dies" (Iviii. 9).
1497 Lib. i. c. 26.
1498 Hist.Nat., vii. 48, and LifeofNuma, § 16.
1499 Mem.Acad.Ins., xvi. c. 48; iii. 183.
1500 VoyageenSibérie, iii. 19.
1501 The spheres of action of the combined Forces of Evolution and Karma are (1) the Super-spiritual or Noumenal; (2) the Spiritual; (3) the Psychic; (4) the Astro-ethereal; (5) the Sub-astral; (6) the Vital; and (7) the purely Physical Spheres.
1502 Adbhutam, see AtharvaVeda, x. 105.
1503 In Hinduism, as understood by the Orientalists from the AtharvaVeda, the three Rajamsi refer to the three "strides" of Vishnu; his ascending higher step being taken in the highest world (A.V., vii. 99, 1; cf. i. 155, 5). It is the Divo Rajah, or the "sky," as they think it. But it is something besides this in Occultism. The sentence, pâreshu gûhyeshu vrateshu (cf., i. 155, 3, and ix. 75, 2, or again, x. 114), in AtharvaVeda, has yet to be explained.
1504 MedicalReview, July, 1844.
1505 H. Grattan Guinness, F.R.G.S., in his ApproachingEndoftheAge, p. 258.
1506 Lancet, 1842, 1843.
1507 Having given a number of illustrations from natural history, the doctor adds: "The facts I have briefly glanced at are general facts, andcannothappendayafterdayinsomanymillionsofanimalsofeverykind, from the larva or ovum of a minute insect up to man, atdefiniteperiods, from a mere chanceorcoincidence.... Upon the whole it is, I think, impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this, that, inanimals, changesoccureverythreeandahalf, seven, fourteen, twenty-one, ortwenty-eightdays, oratsomedefinitenumberofweeks"—or septenary cycles. Again, the same Dr. Laycock states that: "Whatever type the fever may exhibit, therewillbeaparoxysmontheseventhday....thefourteenthwillberemarkableasadayofamendment... [either cure or death taking place]. If the fourth [paroxysm] be severe, and the fifth less so, the disease will end at the seventh paroxysm, and . . . the change for the better . . . will be seen on the fourteenthday... namely, about three or four o'clock a.m., when the system is most languid." (ApproachingEndoftheAge, by Grattan Guinness, pp. 258 to 269, wherein this is quoted).
This is pure "soothsaying" by cyclic calculations, and it is connected with Chaldæan Astroiatry and Astrology. Thus Materialistic Science—in its medicine, themostmaterialisticofall—-applies our Occult laws to diseases, studies natural history with its help, recognizes its presence as a fact in Nature, and yet must needs pooh-pooh the same archaic knowledge when claimed by the Occultists. For if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in Nature, anditisone, as proven; if it is found controlling both evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the kingdom of the animal mammalia and man—why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development? And why, furthermore, should not the most ancient Adepts have studied and thoroughly mastered these cyclic laws under all their aspects? Indeed, Dr. Stratton states as a physiological and pathological fact, that "in health the human pulse is more frequent in the morning than in the evening for six days out of seven; and that on the seventh day it is slower." (EdinburghMedicalandSurgicalJournal, Jan. 1843; ibid., loc.cit.) Why, then, should not an Occultist show the same in cosmic and terrestrial life in the pulse of the Planet and Races? Dr. Laycock divides life by tree great septenary periods; the first and last, each stretching over 21 years, and the central period or prime of life lasting 28 years, or four times seven. He subdivides the first into seven distinct stages, and the other two into three minor periods, and says that: "The fundamental unit of the greater periods is oneweekofsevendays, eachdaybeingtwelvehours, and that single and compound multiples of this unit, determine the length of these periods by the same ratio, as multiples of the unit of twelve hours determine the lesser periods. This law binds all periodic vital phenomena together, and links the periods observed in the lowest annulose animals, with those of man himself, the highest of the vertebraia." (Ibid., p. 267.) If Science does this, why should she scorn the Occult information, that—to use Dr. Laycock's language—one Week of the Manvantaric (Lunar) Fortnight, of fourteen Days (or seven Manus), that Fortnight of twelve Hours in a Day representing seven Periods or seven Races—is now passed? This language of Science fits our Doctrine admirably. Mankind has lived over " itweekofsevendays, each day being twelvehours," since three and a half Races are now gone for ever, the Fourth is submerged, and we are now in the Fifth Race.
1508 Op.cit., p. 269.
1509 See for the length of such cycles or Yugas in VriddhaGarga and other ancient astronomical sections (Jyotisha). They vary from the cycle of five years—which Colebrooke calls "the cycle of the Vedas," specified in the institutes of Parâshara, "and the basis of calculation for larger cycles" (Miscell.Essays, i. 106 and 108)—up to the Mahâ Yuga or the famous cycle of 4,320,000 years.
1510 The Hebrew word for "week" is seven; and any length of time divided by seven would have been a "week" with them—even 49,000,000 years, as it is seven times seven millions. But their calculation is throughout septiform.
1511 Brahmâ creates in the first Kalpa, or on the first Day, various "sacrificial animals" (Pashavah), or the celestial bodies and the Zodiacal signs, and "plants," which he uses in sacrifices at the opening of Tretâ Yuga. The Esoteric meaning shows him proceeding cyclically and creating astral Prototypes on the descending spiritual arc and then on the ascending physical arc. The latter is the subdivision of a two-fold creation, sub-divided again into seven descending and seven ascending degrees of Spirit falling, and of Matter ascending; the inverse of what takes place—as in a mirror which reflects the right on the left side—in this Manvantara of ours. It is the same Esoterically in the Elohistic Genesis (chap. i), and in the Jehovistic copy, as in Hindu cosmogony.
1512 Op.cit., vv. 70, 71, 80; TheKabbalahUnveiled, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, pp. 120, 121.
1513 "The Greater Holy Assembly," v. 1, 160.
1514 See VishnuPurâna, l. v.
1515 It is very surprising to see theologians and Oriental scholars expressing indignation at the "depraved taste" of the Hindu mystics, who, not content with having "invented" the Mind-born Sons of Brahmâ, make the Rishis, Manus, and Prajâpatis of every kind spring from variouspartsofthebody of their primal Progenitor, Brahmâ. (See Wilson's footnote in his VishnuPurâna, i. 102.) Because the average public is unacquainted with the Kahalah, the key to, and glossary of, the much veiled Mosaic Books, therefore, the clergy imagines the truth will never out. Let any one turn to the English, Hebrew, or Latin texts of the Kabalah, now so ably translated by several scholars, and he will find that the Tetragramniaton, which is the Hebrew IHVH, is also both the "Sephirothal Tree"—i.e., it contains all the Sephiroth except Kether, the crown—and the united Body of the Heavenly Man (Adam Kadmon) from whose Limbs emanate the universe and everything in it. Furthermore, he will find that the idea in the Kabalistic Books, the chief of which in the Zohar are the "Book of Concealed Mystery," and of the "Greater" and the "Lesser Holy Assembly," is entirely phallic and far more crudely expressed than is the four-fold Brahmâ in any of the Purânas. (See TheKabbalahUnveiled, by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, chapter xxii. of "The Lesser Holy Assembly," concerning the remaining members of Microprosopus.) For, this "Tree of Life" is also the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," whose chief mystery is that of human procreation. It is a mistake to regard the Kabalah as explaining the mysteries of Kosmos or Nature; it explains and unveils only a few allegories in the Bible, and ismoreesoteric than is the latter.
1516 Simplified in the English Bible to: "Is the Lord [! !] among us, or not?"
1517 Verse 83; op.cit., p. 121.
1518 Translators often render the word "Companion" (Angel, also Adept) by "Rabbi," just as the Rishis are called Gurus. The Zohar is, if possible, more occult than the BookofMoses; to read the "Book of Concealed Mystery" one requires the keys furnished by the genuine Chaldæan BookofNumbers, which is not extant.
1519 Verses 1152,1158,1159; op.cit., p. 254.
1520 IPeter, ii. 2-5.
1521 "The Greater Holy Assembly," vv. 1160, 1161; op.cit., p. 255.
1522 See pp. 445, 446, supra.
1523 Op.cit., i. 297, 2nd ed.
1524 It is. But Âgneyâstra are fiery "missile weapons," not "edged" weapons, as there is some difference between Shastra and Astra in Sanskrit.
1525 Yet there are some, who may know something of these, even outside the author's lines, wide as they undeniably are.
1526 This connecting link, like others, was pointed out by the present writer nine years before the appearance of the work from which the above is quoted, namely in IsisUnveiled, a work full of such guiding links between ancient, mediaeval, and modern thought, but, unfortunately, too loosely edited.
1527 Ay; but how can the learned writer prove that these "beginnings" were precisely in Egypt, and nowhere else; and only 50,000 years ago?
1528 Precisely; and this is just what the Theosophists do. They have never claimed "original inspiration," not even as mediums claim it, but have always pointed, and do now point, to the "primary signification" of the symbols, which they trace to other countries, older even than Egypt; significations, moreover, which emanate from a Hierarchy (or Hierarchies, if preferred) of living Wise Men—mortals notwithstanding that Wisdom—who reject every approach to supernaturalism.
1529 But where is the proof that the Ancients did l ot mean precisely that which the Theosophists claim? Records exist for what they say, just as other records exist for what Mr. Gerald Massey says. His interpretations are very correct, but are also very one-sided. Surely Nature has more than one physicalaspect; for Astronomy, Astrology, and so on, are all on the physical, not the spiritual, plane.
1530 TheNaturalGenesis, i. 318. It is to be feared that Mr. Massey has not succeeded. We have our followers as he has his followers, and Materialistic Science steps in and takes little account of both his and our speculations!
1531 The fact that this learned Egyptologist does not recognize in the doctrine of the "Seven Souls," as he terms our "principles," or "metaphysical 'concepts,'" anything but "the primitive biology or physiology of the soul," does not invalidate our argument. The lecturer touches on only two keys, those that unlock the astronomical and the physiological mysteries of Esotericism, and leaves out the other five. Otherwise he would have promptly understood that what he calls the physiological divisions of the living Soul of man, are regarded by Theosophists as also psychological and spiritual.
1532 Op.cit., p. 2.
1533 Ibid., loc. cit.
1534 Ibid., loc. cit.
1535 Ibid., loc. cit.
1536 Ibid., p. 4.
1537 This is a great mistake made in the Esoteric enumeration. Manas is the fifth, not the fourth; and Manas corresponds precisely with Seb, the Egyptian fifth principle, for that portion of Manas which follows the two higher principles, is the ancestral soul, indeed, the bright, immortal thread of the higher Ego, to which clings the spiritual aroma of all the lives or births.
1538 Ibid., p. 2.
1539 Ibid., pp. 2, 3.
1540 There seems a confusion, lasting for many centuries, in the minds of Western Kabalists. They call Ruach (Spirit) what we call Kâma Rûpa; whereas, with us, Ruach would be the Spiritual Soul, Buddhi, and Nephesh the fourth principle, the Vital, Animal Soul. Éliphas Lévi falls into the same error.
1541 Signatura Rerum, xiv. pars. 10, 14, 15; TheNaturalGenesis, i. 317.
1542 Aurora, xxiv. 27.
1543 This is indeed news! It makes us fear that the lecturer had never read EsotericBuddhism before criticizing it. There are too many such misconceptions in his notices of it.
1544 "The Seven Souls of Man," pp. 26, 27.
1545 Ibid., p. 26.
1546 TheTheosophist, 1887 (Madras), pp. 705, 706.
1547 According to Shvetâshvatara-Upanishad (357) the Siddhas are those who are possessed from birth of "superhuman" powers, as also of "knowledge and indifference to the world." According to the Occult teachings, however, the Siddhas are Nirmânakâyas or the "spirits"—in the sense of an individual, or conscious spirit—of great Sages from spheres on a higher plane than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in its upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and powers.
1548 "The Sacred Books of the East," viii. 284, etseqq.
1549 I propose to follow here the text and not the editor's commentaries, who accepts Arjuna Mishra and NÎIakantha's dead-better explanations. Our Orientalists never trouble to think that if a native commentator is a non-initiate, he could not explain correctly, and if an Initiate, would not.
1550 See Chhândogya, p. 219, and Shankara's commentary thereupon.
1551 The editor explains here, saying, "I presume devoted to the Brahman." We venture to assert that the "Fire" or Self is the real Higher Self "connected with," that is to say one with Brahma, the One Deity. The "Self" separates itself no longer from the Universal Spirit.