The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 The Synthesis of...

They were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords (b). They [the shadows] expanded. The Spirits of the Earth clothed them; the Solar Lhas warmed them [i.e., preserved the Vital Fire in the nascent physical Forms]. The Breaths had life, but had no understanding. They had no Fire or Water of their own (c).

(a) Remember in this connection the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes, the Esoteric meaning of which has seven keys to it. The Astro-chemical is well known to students, the Anthropological may now be given. The “One Thing” mentioned in it is Man. It is said:

This Fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which is eternally reïncarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves, changing with every re-birth, full of Tanha or desire to live. It is a strange law of Nature that, on this plane, the higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Âtman, the All-Spirit, and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to the bitter end. This cannot be thoroughly understood unless the student makes himself familiar with the mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines—Spiritual, Psychic and Physical.

That which propels towards, and forces evolution, i.e., compels the [pg 116] growth and development of Man towards perfection, is (a) the Monad, or that which acts in it unconsciously through a Force inherent in itself; and (b) the lower Astral Body or the Personal Self. The former, whether imprisoned in a vegetable or an animal body, is endowed with, is indeed itself, that Force. Owing to its identity with the All-Force, which, as said, is inherent in the Monad, it is all-potent on the Arûpa, or formless plane. On our plane, its essence being too pure, it remains all-potential, but individually becomes inactive. For instance, the rays of the Sun, which contribute to the growth of vegetation, do not select this or that plant to shine upon. Uproot the plant and transfer it to a piece of soil where the sunbeam cannot reach it, and the latter will not follow it. So with the Âtman: unless the Higher Self or Ego gravitates towards its Sun—the Monad—the Lower Ego, or Personal Self, will have the upper hand in every case. For it is this Ego, with its fierce selfishness and animal desire to live a senseless life (Tanha), which is the “maker of the tabernacle,” as Buddha calls it in the Dhammapada.250 Hence the expression, the Spirits of the Earth clothed the shadows and expanded them. To these “Spirits” belong temporarily the human Astral Selves; and it is they who give, or build, the physical tabernacle of man, for the Monad and its conscious principle, Manas, to dwell in. But the “Solar” Lhas, or Spirits, warm the Shadows.

This is physically and literally true; metaphysically, or on the psychic and spiritual plane, it is equally true that the Âtman alone warms the Inner Man; i.e., it enlightens it with the Ray of Divine Life and alone is able to impart to the Inner Man, or the Reïncarnating Ego, its immortality. Thus, we shall find, for the first three and a half Root-Races, up to the middle or turning point, it is the Astral Shadows of the “Progenitors,” the Lunar Pitris, which are the formative powers in the Races, and which build and gradually force the evolution of the physical form towards perfection—this, at the cost of a proportionate loss of Spirituality. Then, from the turning point, it is the Higher Ego, or Incarnating Principle, the Nous or Mind, which reigns over the Animal Ego, and rules it whenever it is not carried down by the latter. In short, Spirituality is on its ascending arc, and the animal or physical impedes it from steadily progressing on the path of its evolution, only when the selfishness of the Personality has so strongly infected the real Inner Man with its lethal virus, that the upward attraction has lost all its power on the thinking reasonable man. In sober truth, vice and [pg 117] wickedness are an abnormal, unnatural manifestation, at this period of our human evolution—at least they ought to be so. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and vicious than it is now—civilized nations having succeeded in making of the former an ethical characteristic, of the latter an art—is an additional proof of the exceptional nature of the phenomenon.

The entire scheme is in the Chaldæan Book of Numbers, and even in the Zohar, if one only understands the meaning of the apocalyptic hints. First comes Ain Suph, the “Concealed of the Concealed,” then the Point, Sephira and the later Sephiroth; then the Atzilatic World, a World of Emanations that gives birth to three other Worlds—the first the Briatic World called the Throne, the abode of pure Spirits; the second, the World of Formation, or Jetziratic, the habitat of the Angels who sent forth the Third, or World of Action, the Asiatic World, which is the Earth or our World; and yet it is said of this World—also called Kliphoth, containing the (six other) Spheres, נלגלים, and Matter—that it is the residence of the “Prince of Darkness.” This is as clearly stated as can be; for Metatron, the Angel of the second Briatic World, the first habitable World, means Messenger, Ἄγγελος, Angel, called the great Teacher; and under him are the Angels of the third World, or Jetziratic, whose ten and seven classes are the Sephiroth,251 of whom it is said that:

These “contraries” are called the “Shells,” קליפות, or Demons,252 who inhabit the seven habitations called Sheba Hachaloth, which are simply the seven Zones of our Globe.253 Their prince is called in the Kabalah Samaël, the Angel of Death, who is also the seducing Serpent Satan; but this Satan is also Lucifer, the bright Angel of Light, the Light- and Life-bringer, the “Soul” alienated from the Holy Ones, the other Angels, and for a period, anticipating the time when they would descend on Earth to incarnate in their turn.

Because through, and in, the human form they will become progressive Beings, whereas the nature of the Angel is purely intransitive; therefore Man has in him the potency of transcending the faculties of the Angels. Hence the Initiates in India say that it is the Brâhman, the Twice-born, who rules the Gods or Devas; and Paul repeated it in his Epistle to the Corinthians:

Finally, it is shown in every ancient Scripture and Cosmogony that man evolved primarily as a luminous incorporeal form, over which, like molten brass poured into the model of the sculptor, the physical frame of his body was built by, through and from, the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life. Says the Zohar:

When Adam dwelled in the garden of Eden, he was dressed in the celestial garment, which is the garment of heavenly light ...light of that light which was used in the garden of Eden.258Man [the Heavenly Adam] wascreatedby the ten Sephiroth of the Jetziratic World, and by their common powerthe seven Angels of a still lower World engendered the Earthly Adam. First Samaël fell, and thendeceiving(?) man, caused his fall also.

(b) The sentence, “they were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords”—i.e., the Progenitors created man out of their own Astral Bodies—explains a universal belief. The Devas are credited in the East with having no “shadows” of their own. “The Devas cast no shadows,” and this is the sure sign of a good holy Spirit.

(c) Why had they “no Fire or Water of their own”?259 Because that which Hydrogen is to the elements and gases on the objective plane, its Noumenon is in the world of mental or subjective phenomena; since its trinitarian latent nature is mirrored in its three active emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, Spirit, Soul, and Mind, or Âtmâ, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the material human basis. Rudimentary man, having been nursed by the “Air” or the “Wind,” becomes the perfect man later on; when, with the development of “Spiritual Fire,” the Noumenon of the “Three in One” within his Self, he acquires from his Inner Self, or Instructor, the Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the beginning. Thus here again Divine Spirit is symbolized by the Sun or Fire; Divine Soul by Water and the Moon, both standing for the Father and Mother of Pneuma, the Human Soul, or Mind, symbolized by the Wind or Air, for Pneuma, means “Breath.”

For the Secret Work of Chiram, or King Hiram in the Kabalah, “one in essence, but three in aspect,” is the Universal Agent or Lapis Philosophorum. The culmination of the Secret Work is Spiritual Perfect Man, at one end of the line; the union of the three Elements is the Occult Solvent in the “Soul of the World,” the Cosmic Soul or Astral Light, at the other; and, on the material plane, it is Hydrogen in its relation to the other gases. The To On, truly; the One “whom no person has seen except the Son”; this sentence applying both to the metaphysical and physical Kosmos, and to the spiritual and material Man. For how could the latter understand the To On, the [pg 120] “One Father,” if his Manas, the “Son,” does not become (as) “One with the Father,” and through this absorption receive enlightenment from the divine “Instructor,” or Guru—Âtmâ-Buddhi?

“We say four Elements, my Son, but ought to say three,” says Hermes Trismegistus. “In the Primary Circle,” or Creation that which is marked [Symbol: Like a large letter H, with dots above and below, and tildes above and below] reads “Root,” as in the Secondary likewise.