THE PROTEAN SPIRIT-SUBSTANCE 111 the teaching of the trans-Himâlayan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however, has its own way of dividing these principles. Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles - on an immense scalethat of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity - the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things — from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy — the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivized thought of the gods; the "Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,158 and the preserving fourth principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or— Electricity. In 158. In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society was taken to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. "Force," "Energy," may be a better name for it, so long as European Science knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is "immaterial" in the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it may be and Occultism says it is atomic; therefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force where is that Force or that Energy which India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Sûrya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.159 In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is "a manifestation of the Solar Energy," and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the other. The "three and seven" strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth. Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be Orientalists, the Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly referred to in the exoteric Hindû scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers are connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their symbols, can be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old religions. The "three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the Universe," of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun" cosmically; and as having been taken in the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the "three steps" of the dwarf (Vishnu's incarnation), though more philosophically and in the astronomical sense, very correctly they are explained by Aurnavâbha as being the various positions of the sun, rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called Echod, "one," or the "Deity is one in many," a very simple idea in a pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, "How is Jehovah Elohim?" the answer is, "By three Steps" from 159. It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration assumes a series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact? THE CORRELATION OF THE GODS 113 below. The meaning is plain.160 They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (MAN); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other "UNKNOWABLE") becomes "One"- the ECHOD, the EKA, the АHU-then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyâni-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshâspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or "Man." And from man, or Jah-Hova, “male female,” the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim. The Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of the Archaic period. This esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs neither to the Aryan 5th Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot be claimed by the Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldaeans, nor any of the Seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth, the earliest Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown-"Boundless Space," the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction — the Incognizable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The Zeroana Akerne is also the "Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time," from which Circle. issues the radiant light— the Universal SUN, or Ormazd 161 — and the latter is identical with Kronos, in his Aeolian form, that of a Circle. 160. The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent in speculative masonry, as shown in "Isis." A Mason writes:-"There are the 3, 5, and 7 steps to show a circular walk. The three faces of 3, 3; 5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc. Sometimes it comes in this form:— 153/2-376.5 and 7635/3817.5 and the ratio of 20612/6561 feet for cubic measure gives the Great Pyramid measures," etc., etc. Three, five and seven are mystical numbers, and the last and the first are as greatly honored by Masons as by the Parsis - the triangle being a symbol of Deity everywhere. (See the Masonic Cyclopaedia, and "Pythagorean Tri angle," Oliver.) As a matter of course, doctors of divinity (Cassel, for instance) show the Zohar explaining and supporting the Christian trinity (!). It is the latter, however, that had its origin from the of the Heathen, in the Archaic Occultism and Symbology. The three strides relate metaphysically to the descent of Spirit into matter, of the Logos falling as a ray into the Spirit, then into the Soul, and finally into the human physical form of man, in which it becomes LIFE. 161. Ormazd is the Logos, the Born and the Sun. "First For the circle is Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god whose circular horizon was the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun was the ONE Circle from which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was considered the leader. Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is, according to the definition of a mystic, "a curve of such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be protracted either way it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form one and the same curve or that which we call the circle." No better definition could thus be given of the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which having its circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central point also everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The invisible Deity is thus also the Dhyân Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive seven, and the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from which IT steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV, the reader will understand why, while the trans-Himalayan Chakra has inscribed within it A✯ (triangle, first line, cube, second line, and a pentacle with a dot in the center thus:, and some other variations), the Kabalistic circle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of the word D (Alhim or Elohim) are numerically read, the famous numerals 13514, or by anagram 31415 the astronomical (pi) number, or the hidden meaning of Dhyâni-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the Elohim, all signifying "great men," "Titans," "Heavenly Men," and, on earth, "the giants." 90 70 The Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but none applied it to more physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews. With these it was pre-eminently the generative number and 9 the male causative one, forming as shown by the Kabalists the "the Tree of the Garden of Eden," 162 the "double hermaphrodite rod" of the fourth race. Whereas with the Hindûs and Aryans generally, the significance was manifold, and related almost entirely to purely ע צ or otz letters - as shown above -one, the ayin, is a negative female letter, symboli. cally an eye; the other a male letter, tza, a fish-hook or a dart. MANIFESTED SYMBOLS 115 metaphysical and astronomical truths.163 Their Rishis and gods, their Demons and Heroes, have historical and ethical meanings, and the Aryans never made their religion rest solely on physiological symbols, as the old Hebrews have done. This is found in the exoteric Hindû Scriptures. That these accounts are blinds is shown by their contradicting each other, a different construction being found in almost every Purâna and epic poem. Read esoterically they will all yield the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates Seven worlds, exclusive of the nether worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper and nether worlds have nothing to do with the classification of the septenary chain and belong to the purely aethereal, invisible worlds. 163. We are told by a Kabalist, who in a work not yet published contrasts the Kabala and Zohar with Aryan Esotericism, that "The Hebrew clear, short, terse and exact modes far and beyond measure surpass the toddling word-talk of the Hindus- just as by parallelisms the Psalmist says, 'My mouth speaks with my tongue, I know not thy numbers' (lxxi, 15). . . The Hindû Glyph shows by its insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the same borrowed plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and that Masonry has: which in the rough monosyllabic (and apparent) poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter to have come down from a far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to have been the source (!?), or nearer the old original source than any of them." This is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent judges apparently the Hindû religious systems by their Sâstras and Purânas, probably the latter, and in their modern translation moreover, which is disfigured out of all recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their philosophical systems that one has to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if he would make a point of comparison. No doubt the symbology of the Pentateuch and even of the New Testament, comes from the same source. But surely the Pyramid of Cheops, whose meas urements are all found repeated by Professor Piazzi Smyth in Solomon's alleged and mythical temple, is not of a later date than the Mosaic books? Hence, if there is any such great identity as claimed, it must be due to servile copying on the part of the the Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The Jewish glyphs - and even their language, the Hebrew -are not original. They are borrowed from the Egyptians, from whom Moses got his Wisdom; from the Coptic, the probable kinsman, if not parent, cf the old Phoenician; and from the Hyksos, their (alleged) ancestors, as Josephus shows in his "Against Apion," I, 25. Aye; but who are the Hyksos shepherds? And who the Egyptians? History knows nothing of the question, and speculates and theorizes out of the depths of the respective consciousnesses of her historians. (See Isis Unveiled, vol. II, p. 430-438.) "Khamism or old Coptic," says Bunsen, "is from Western Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus bearing witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Aryan and Semitic races"; and he places the great events in Egypt 9000 years B. C. The fact is that in archaic Esotericism and Aryan thought we find a grand philosophy, whereas in the Hebrew records we find only the most surprising ingenuity in inventing apotheoses for phallic worship and sexual theogony. |