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

When the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the Kosmic reflection of God; it anathematizes God made manifest in Matter or in the objective; it maledicts God, or the ever-incomprehensible Wisdom, [pg 246] revealing itself as Light and Shadow, Good and Evil in Nature, in the only manner comprehensible to the limited intellect of Man.

This is the true philosophical and metaphysical interpretation of Samael, or Satan, the Adversary in the Kabalah; the same tenets and spirit being found in the allegorical interpretations of every other ancient religion. This philosophical view does not interfere, however, with the historical records connected with it. We say “historical,” because allegory and mythical ornamentation round the kernel of tradition, in nowise prevent that kernel being a record of real events. Thus, the Kabalah, repeating the time-honoured revelations of the once universal history of our Globe and the evolution of its Races, has presented it under the legendary form of the various records which have formed the Bible. Its historical foundation, in however imperfect a form, is now offered in these pages from the Secret Doctrine of the East; and thus the allegorical and symbolical meaning of the Serpent of Genesis is found explained by the “Sons of Wisdom”—or Angels from higher Spheres, though all and each pertain to the Kingdom of Satan, or Matter—revealing to men the mysteries of Heaven. Hence, also, all the so-called myths of the Hindû, Grecian, Chaldæan, and Jewish Pantheons are found to be built on fact and truth. The Giants of Genesis are the historical Atlanteans of Lankâ, and the Greek Titans.

Who can forget that Troy was once upon a time proclaimed a myth, and Homer a non-existent personage, while the existence of such cities as Herculaneum and Pompeii was denied, and attributed to mere fairy legends? Yet Schliemann has proved that Troy did really exist, and the two latter cities, though buried for long ages under the Vesuvian lava, have had their resurrection day, and live again on the surface of the Earth. How many more cities and localities called “fabulous” are on the list of future discoveries, how many more personages regarded as mythical548 will one day become historical, those alone can tell who read the decrees of Fate in the Astral Light.

As the tenets of the Eastern Doctrine, however, have always been kept secret, and as the reader can hardly hope to be shown the original texts unless he becomes an accepted disciple, let the Greek and Latin scholar turn to the original texts of Hermetic literature. Let him, for instance, read carefully the opening pages of the Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus, and he will see our doctrines corroborated therein, however veiled its text. There also he will find the evolution of the [pg 247] Universe, of our Earth, called “Nature” in Pymander, as of everything else, from the “Moyst Principle,” or the great Deep, Father-Mother—the first differentiation in the manifested Kosmos. First the “Universal Mind,” which the hand of the Christian translator has metamorphosed in the earliest renderings into God, the Father; then the “Heavenly Man,”549 the great Total of that Host of Angels, which was too pure for the creation of the inferior Worlds or of the Men of our Globe, but which nevertheless fell into Matter by virtue of that same evolution, as the Second Logos of the “Father.”550

Synthetically, every Creative Logos, or “the Son who is one with the Father,” is the Host of the Rectores Mundi in itself. Even Christian Theology makes of the seven “Angels of the Presence” the Virtues, or the personified attributes, of God, which, being created by him, as the Manus were by Brahmâ, became Archangels. The Roman Catholic Theodice itself, recognizing in its creative Verbum Princeps the Head of these Angels (caput angelorum) and the Angel of the great Counsel (magni consilii angelus), thus recognizes the identity of Christ with them.

“The Sura became A-Sura”—the Gods became No-Gods—says the text; i.e., Gods became Fiends—Satan, when read literally. But Satan will now be shown, in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine, to be allegorized as Good and Sacrifice, a God of Wisdom, under different names.

The Kabalah teaches that Pride and Presumption—the two chief prompters of Selfishness and Egotism—are the causes that emptied Heaven of one-third of its divine denizens, mystically, and of one-third of the stars, astronomically; in other words, the first statement is an allegory, and the second a fact. The former, nevertheless, is, as shown, intimately connected with humanity.

In their turn the Rosicrucians, who were well acquainted with the secret meaning of the tradition, kept it to themselves, teaching merely that the whole of “creation” was due to, and the result of, that [pg 248] legendary “War in Heaven,” brought on by the rebellion of the Angels551 against Creative Law, or the Demiurge. The statement is correct, but the inner meaning is to this day a mystery. To elude further explanation of the difficulty, by appealing to divine mystery, or to the sin of prying into its policy—is to say nothing at all. It may prove sufficient for believers in the Pope's infallibility, but will hardly satisfy the philosophical mind. Yet the truth, although known to most of the higher Kabalists, has never been told by any of their number. One and all, Kabalists and Symbologists, have shown an extraordinary reluctance to confess the primitive meaning of the Fall of the Angels. In a Christian such silence is only natural. Neither Alchemist nor Philosopher during the Mediæval Ages could have uttered that552 which in the sight of Orthodox Theology was terrible blasphemy, for it would have [pg 249] led them directly through the “Holy” Office of the Inquisition, to rack and stake. But for our modern Kabalists and Freethinkers the case is different. With the latter, we fear, it is merely human pride, vanity based on a loudly rejected but ineradicable superstition.

Since the Church, in her struggle with Manicheeïsm, invented the Devil, and by placing a theological extinguisher on the radiant Star-God Lucifer, the “Son of the Morning,” thus created the most gigantic of all her paradoxes, a black and tenebrous Light—the myth has struck its roots too deeply into the soil of blind faith to permit, in our age, even those, who do not acquiesce in her dogmas, and laugh at her horned and cloven-footed Satan, to come out bravely and confess the antiquity of the oldest of all traditions. In a few brief words it is this. Semi-exoterically, the “First-born” of the Almighty—Fiat Lux—or the Angels of Primordial Light, were commanded to “create”; one-third of them rebelled and “refused”; while those who “obeyed” as Fetahil did—failed most signally.

To realize the refusal and failure in their correct physical meaning, one must study and understand Eastern Philosophy; one has to be acquainted with the fundamental mystical tenets of the Vedântins, as to the utter fallacy of attributing functional activity to the Infinite and Absolute Deity. Esoteric Philosophy maintains that during the Sandhyâs, the “Central Sun” emits Creative Light—passively, so to say. Causality is latent. It is only during the active periods of Being that it gives rise to a stream of ceaseless Energy, whose vibrating currents acquire more activity and potency with every rung of the hebdomadic ladder of Being which they descend. Hence it becomes comprehensible how the process of “creating,” or rather of fashioning, the organic Universe, with all its units of the seven kingdoms, necessitated intelligent Beings—who became collectively a Being or Creative God, differentiated already from the One Absolute Unity, unrelated as the latter is to conditioned “creation.”553

Now the Vatican MS. of the Kabalah—the only copy of which (in Europe) is said to have been in the possession of Count St. Germain—contains the most complete exposition of the doctrine, including the peculiar version accepted by the Luciferians554 and other Gnostics; and [pg 250] in that parchment the “Seven Suns of Life” are given in the order in which they are found in the Saptasûrya. Only four of these, however, are mentioned in the editions of the Kabalah which are procurable in public libraries, and that even in a more or less veiled phraseology. Nevertheless even this reduced number is amply sufficient to show an identical origin, as it refers to the quaternary group of the Dhyân Chohans, and proves the speculation to have had its origin in the Secret Doctrines of the Âryans. As is well known, the Kabalah did not originate with the Jews, for the latter got their ideas from the Chaldæans and the Egyptians.

Thus even the exoteric Kabalistic teachings speak of a “Central Sun,” and of three secondary Suns in each Solar System—our own included. As shown in that able though too materialistic work, New Aspects of Life and Religion, which is a synopsis of the views of the Kabalists in an aspect deeply thought out and assimilated:

The central sun ... was to them [as much as to the Âryans] thecentre of rest; the centre to which all motion was to be ultimately referred. Round this central sun ...“the first of three systemic suns ... revolved on a polar plane ... the second, on an equatorial plane”... and the third only was our visible sun. These four solar bodies were “the organs on whose action what man calls the creation, the evolution of life on the planet earth, depends.”The channels through which the influence of these bodies was conveyed to the earth they [the Kabalists] held to be electrical.... The radiant energy flowing from the central sun555called the earth into being as a watery globe, ... [whose tendency], as the nucleus of a planetary body, was to rush to the (central) sun ... within the sphere of whose attraction it had been created.... But the radiant energy, similarly electrifying both, withheld the one from the other, and so changed motion towards into motion round the centre of attraction, which the revolving planet [earth] thus sought to reach.

In the organic cell thevisible sunfound its own proper matrix, and produced through this the animal [while maturing the vegetable] kingdom, finally placing man at its head, in whom, through the animating action of that kingdom, it originated the psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal kingdom, at the head of the creation, was the animal, thesoul-less, the perishable man....[pg 251]Hence man, although apparently its crown, would, by his advent have marked the close of creation; since creation, culminating in him, would at his death have entered on its decline.556

This Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the Eastern Doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the Seven Suns with the seven systems of Planes of Being, of which the “Suns” are the central bodies, and you have the seven Angelic Planes, whose “Host” collectively are the Gods thereof.557 They are the Head Group divided into four Classes, from the Incorporeal down to the Semi-corporeal. These Classes are directly connected—though in very different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions—with our mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth, the first and highest, which is called the “Central Sun” in the Kabalistic doctrine just quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Âryan Cosmogony—one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of Nature; the other spiritualizes Matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh “principle” reaches man through all the phases of Being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes through—the Kabalah teaches from—the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the Second, the Polar Sun, which two radiate on man his Âtmâ. Group Three, the Equatorial Sun, cements the Buddhi to Âtman and the higher attributes of Manas; while Group Four, the Spirit of our visible Sun, endows him with his Manas and its vehicle, the Kâma Rûpa, or body of passions and desires—the two elements of Ahamkâra which evolve individualized consciousness, the personal Ego.

But everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else, and the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern Teachings, whereas it is only hinted at in the Kabalah. Says the Book of Dzyan with regard to Primeval Man when first projected by the “Boneless,” the Incorporeal Creator:

First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow-Son [the Body] were“created.”But where was the Pivot [the Middle Principle, Manas]? Man is doomed. When alone, the Indiscrete [Undifferentiated Element] and the Vâhan [Buddhi]—the Cause of the Causeless—break asunder from manifested life.

In other words, the two higher “principles” can have no individuality on Earth, cannot be man, unless there is (a) the Mind, the Manas-Ego, to cognize itself, and (b) the terrestrial false Personality, or the Body of egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a Pivot—which it is, truly—to the physical form of man. It is the fifth and the fourth “principles”558—Manas and Kâma Rûpa—that contain the dual Personality; the real immortal Ego, if it assimilates itself to the two higher, and the false and transitory Personality, the Mâyâvi or Astral Body, so-called, or the Animal-human Soul—the two having to be closely blended for purposes of a full terrestrial existence. Incarnate the Spiritual Monad of a Newton, grafted on that of the greatest saint on Earth, in a physical body the most perfect you can think of—i.e., in a two or even a three-principled Body composed of its Sthûla Sharîra, Prâna (Life-principle) and Linga Sharîra—and, if it lacks its middle and fifth “principles,” you will have created an idiot—at best a beautiful, soul-less, empty and unconscious appearance. “Cogito—ergo sum” can find no room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate.

Like produces like and no more at the genesis of Being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self Existent560are called“Creations,”for they appear in the Spirit-Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in its Unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and [limited or conditioned] Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called creation and creatures; they are the development [evolution] of the Discrete Elements.

The Heavenly Rûpa [Dhyân Chohan] creates [man] in his own form; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal [manifested] Substance; that form is the ideal Shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race.

To express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this Earth only, it was the duty of the first “differentiated” Egos—the Church calls them Archangels—to imbue Primordial Matter with the evolutionary impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and Western tradition—“the Angels were commanded to create.” After the Earth had been made ready by the lower and more material Powers, and its three Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be “fruitful and multiply,” the higher Powers, the Archangels or Dhyânîs, were compelled by the Evolutionary Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution—Man. Thus the “Self-created” and the “Self-existent” projected their pale Shadows; but Group the Third, the Fire-Angels, rebelled and refused to join their fellow Devas.

Hindû exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse to “create,” as they desired to remain eternally Kumâras, “Virgin Youths,” in order, if possible, to anticipate their fellows in progress towards Nirvâna-the final liberation. But, agreeably to Esoteric interpretation, it was a self-sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The “Rebels” would not create will-less irresponsible men, as the “obedient” Angels did; nor could they endow human beings with even the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for the latter, belonging to another and a so much higher plane of consciousness, would leave man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of higher progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on Earth—the lowest and most material plane—for one who, on that plane at all events, is inherently perfect and cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Had Man remained the pale Shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless Perfection, the one negative and passive attribute of the real I am that I am, he would have been doomed to pass through life on Earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a failure on this plane.

The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first pronounced (if, indeed, they ever were pronounced) the cruel words, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to [pg 254] know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...”—must have been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature, the reflection of which created Ophiomorphos. In this case it is but natural—even from the dead-letter standpoint—to view Satan, the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Mankind. For it is he who was the “Harbinger of Light,” bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton “created” by Jehovah, as alleged. And he who was the first to whisper, “in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil,” can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An “Adversary” to Jehovah, the “personating spirit,” he still remains in Esoteric Truth the ever-loving “Messenger,” the Angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both “knew” well, and “loved” still more, and who conferred on us Spiritual, instead of Physical Immortality—the latter a kind of static immortality that would have transformed man into an undying “Wandering Jew.”

Ildabaoth was far from being a pure spirit; ambition and pride dominated in his composition. He therefore resolved to break off all connection with his mother, Achamoth, and to create a world entirely for himself. Aided by his own Six Spirits, he created Man, intending him for the image of his power; but he failed utterly in his work, his Man proving a vast, soulless monster, crawling upon the earth. The Six Spirits were obliged to bring their work again before their father, to be animated: he did so by communicating the ray of Divine Light which he himself had inherited from Achamoth, who by this loss punished him for his pride and self-sufficiency.

Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son, followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the“Primal Man.”At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose“Satan Serpent-formed,”Ophiomorphos, the embodiment of envy and cunning.561

This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from the dead-letter text of Chapter iii of Genesis. [pg 255] Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the Divine Fire so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of Spiritual Evolution, thus transforming the most perfect of animals on Earth into a potential God, and making him free to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence.” Hence, also, the curse pronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah-Ilda-baoth against his “rebellious son,” Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian mountain and the never-dying, singeing fire and flames of an inextinguishable Hell, two poles, yet the same idea, the dual aspect of a refined torture; a “Fire-producer”—the personified emblem of Φωσφόρος (Phósphoros), of the Astral Fire and Light in the Anima Mundi (that Element of which the German materialist philosopher Moleschott said: “ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke,” or “without phosphorus no thought”)—burning in the fierce Flames of his terrestrial Passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart—a Prometheus indeed, because a conscious, and hence a responsible entity.562 The curse of life is great, yet, with the exception of some Hindû and Sufi mystics, how few are those who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils of a

responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive (objectively) incorporeal Being, or even the universal static Inertia personified in Brahmâ during his “Night's” Rest. For, to quote from an able article by one563 who, confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim thereto: