The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 The Synthesis of...

In the accompanying diagram the days of the week do not stand in their usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as determined by the order of the colours in the solar spectrum and the corresponding colours of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they tried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for the order of the days of the week as it now stands does not follow the order of the planets.

Now, the Ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the protection and rule of a planet. In course of time each day came to be called by the name of that planet which ruled its first portion—the morning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as follows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the seventh, so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn; e.g., beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was ruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. It should be remembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret planet.

The present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the Ancients and the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar phases is as old as the world, and originated with the people who reckoned time by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it. Till the days of the Cæsars there is no trace of a week of seven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of eight days, and the Athenian of ten.780 Thus one of the numberless contradictions [pg 453] and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian septenary week of the lunar reckoning, and the preservation at the same time of the mythological names of the planets.

Nor do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets and their colours correctly; and while Occultists can give good reason for every detail of their own tables of colours, etc., it is doubtful whether the Astrologers can do the same.

To close this first Paper, let me say that the readers must in all necessity be separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite rid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts, but who long to ascertain how much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultists; and those others who, having freed themselves from the trammels of Materialism and Relativity, feel that true and real bliss must be sought only in the knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu Philosopher calls the Brahmavidyâ, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of Âdibuddha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former pick out and study from these Papers only those explanations of the phenomena of life which profane Science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they will find by the end of a year or two that they will have learned more than all their Universities and Colleges can teach them. As to the sincere believers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way except through the region of the higher mind, the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all-pervading Absoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human minds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which shines on the ocean of Mâyâ, or of temporary delusions, and lasts for but one incarnation. These laws are necessary for the life and welfare of physical man alone.