of the first implies, ever boys, Kumaras: that is, ever pure and innocent, whence their creation is also called the "Kumara." (Booh I. chap, v., Vishnu Purdna.J The Puranas, however, may afford a little more light." Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as Sanat-Kumara" (Linga purdna, prior section LXX. 174.) In the Saiva Purdna, the Kumaras are always described as Yogins. The Kurma Purana, after enumerating them, says: "These five, O Brahmans, were Yogins, who acquired entire exemption from passion." They are five, because two of the Kumaras fell.

Of all the seven great divisions of Dhyan-Chohans, or Devas, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the Kumaras. Imprudent are the Christian Theologians who have degraded them into fallen Angels, and now call them "Satan" and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who refuse to create, the Archangel Michael—the greatest patron Saint of Western and Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and his supposed copy on earth, St. George conquering the Dragon—has to be allowed one of the most prominent places. (See Book II., "The Sacred Dragons and their Slayers.") The Kumaras, the "mind-born Sons" of Brahmd-Rudra (or Siva)

and Sanat-Kumâra proceeded to create beings." Whereas, as Wilson shows, the original is : These seven created progeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanat Kumâra, restraining their power, abstained from creation." The four orders of beings" are referred to sometimes as " Ambhamsi," which Wilson renders: "literally Waters," and believes it "a mystic term." It is one, no doubt; but he evidently failed to catch the real esoteric meaning. "Waters" and "water" stand as the symbol for Akâsa, the "primordial Ocean of Space," on which Narayana, the selfborn Spirit, moves: reclining on that which is its progeny (See Manu). "Water is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the name of water explained. Since Brahmâ rests on the water, therefore he is termed Narayana" (Linga, Vayu, and Markandeya Puránas) Pure, Purusha created the waters pure at the same time Water is

46

the third principle in material Kosmos, and the third in the realm of the Spiritual : Spirit of Fire, Flame, Akâsa, Ether, Water, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spiritual and mystic principles, pre-eminently occult, in every plane of being. "Gods, Demons, Pitris and men," are the four orders of beings to whom the term Ambhamsi is applied (in the Vedas it is a synonym of gods): because they are all the product of WATERS (mystically), of the Akâsic Ocean, and of the Third principle in nature. Pitris and men on earth are the transformations (rebirths) of gods and demons (Spirits) on a higher plane. Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the mother of the god of love, the generator of all the gods as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare (the sea), the mother of the Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric philosophy thinks deeply over the subject he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambhamsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the Waters of Grace" of the modern Baptist.

THE PATRON-GUIDE OF ISRAEL.

459

the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man-mystically,* are the progeny of Siva, the Mahayogi, the great patron of all the Yogis and mystics of India. They themselves, being the "Virgin-Ascetics," refuse to create the waterial being MAN. Well may they be suspected of a direct connection with the Christian Archangel Michael, the "Virgin Combatant" of the Dragon Apophis, whose victim is every soul united too loosely to its immortal Spirit, the Angel who, as shown by the Gnostics, refused to create just as the Kumâras did. (See Book II., “The Mystic Dragons and their Slayers.") Does not that patron-Angel of the Jews preside over Saturn (Siva or Rudra), and the Sabbath, the day of Saturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his father (Saturn), and called the "Son of Time," Kronos, or Kâla (time), a form of Brahma (Vishnu and Siva)?" And is not "Old Time" of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand-glass, identical with the "Ancient of Days" of the Kabalists the latter "Ancient" being one with the Hindu "Ancient of Days," Brahmâ (in his triune form), whose name is also "Sanat," the Ancient? Every Kumara bears the prefix of Sanat and Sana; and Sanaischara is Saturn, the planet (Sani and Sarra), the King Saturn whose Secretary in Egypt was ThotHermes the first. They are thus identified both with the planet and the god (Siva), who are, in their turn, shown the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal, Siva, and Jehovah Sabbaoth, The angel of whose face is MIKAEL (who is as God"). He is the patron, and guardian Angel of the Jews, as Daniel tells us (v. 21); and, before the Kumaras were degraded, by those who were ignorant of their very name, into demons and fallen angels, the Greek Ophites, the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of the Roman Catholic Church. after its secession and separation from the primitive Greek Church, had identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos, the rebellious and opposing spirit. This means nothing more than the reverse aspect (symbolically) of Ophis—divine Wisdom or Christos. In the Talmud, Mikael (Michael) is "Prince of Water" and the chief of the seven Spirits, for the same reason that his prototype (among many others) Sanat-Sujâta,

"

* Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must first Die before his body does. To live is to die and to die is to live," has been too little understood in the West. Siva, the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to spiritual, man.

call to life the perceptions of the

-the chief of the Kumâras-is called Ambhamsi, "Waters," according to the commentary on Vishnu Purâna. Why? Because the "Waters" is another name of the "Great Deep," the primordial Waters of space or Chaos, and also means "Mother," Amba, meaning Aditi and Akâsa, the Celestial Virgin-Mother of the visible universe. Furthermore, the Waters of the flood" are also called "the GREAT Dragon," or Ophis, Ophio-Morphos.

The Rudras will be noticed in their Septenary character of "FireSpirits" in the "Symbolism" attached to the Stanzas in Book II. There we shall also consider the Cross (3 + 4) under its primeval and later forms, and shall use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side with Hebrew Metrology. The immense importance of the number seven will thus become evident, as the root number of nature. We shall examine it from the standpoints of the Vedas and the Chaldean Scriptures, as it existed in Egypt thousands of years B.C., and as treated in the Gnostic records; we shall show how its importance as a basic number has gained recognition in physical Science; and we shall endeavour to prove that fhe importance attached to the number seven throughout all antiquity was due to no fanciful imaginings of uneducated priests, but to a profound knowledge of natural law.

§ XIV.

THE FOUR ELEMENTS.

Metaphysically and esoterically there is but One Element in nature, and at the root of it is the Deity; and the so-called seven elements, of which five have already manifested and asserted their existence, are the garment, the veil, of that deity; direct from the essence whereof comes Man, whether physically, psychically, mentally or spiritually considered. Four elements only are generally spoken of in later antiquity, five admitted only in philosophy. For the body of ether is not fully manifested yet, and its noumenon is still "the Omnipotent Father— Æther, the synthesis of the rest." But what are these "Elements" whose compound bodies have now been discovered by Chemistry and Physics to contain numberless sub-elements, even the sixty or seventy of which no longer embrace the whole number suspected. (Vide Addenda, jj XI. and XII., quotations from Mr. Crookes' Lectures.) Let us follow their evolution from the historical beginnings, at any rate. The four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said that they were that "which composes and decomposes the compound bodies."

ON THE ELEMENTS.

461 Hence Cosmolatry was never, even in its worst aspect, the fetishism which adores or worships the passive external form and matter of any object, but looked ever to the noumenon therein. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the visible garb, the symbols of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits—the Cosmic gods to whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, respectful recognition by the wiser. In their turn the phenomenal subdivisions of the noumenal Elements were informed by the Elementals, so called, the "Nature Spirits" of lower grades.

In the Theogony of Moschus, we find Ether first, and then the air; the two principles from which Ulom the intelligible (voros) God (the visible universe of matter) is born.*

In the Orphic hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the Spiritual Egg, which the Ethereal winds impregnate, Wind being "the Spirit of God," who is said to move in Æther, "brooding over the chaos"— the Divine " Idea." In the Hindu Katakopanisdd, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already stands before the original matter, from whose union springs the great Soul of the World, " Maha=-Atma, Brahm, the Spirit of Life;" t these latter appellations being again identical with the Universal Soul, or Anima Mmidi, the Astral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists, being its last and lowest division."

The σraxea, (Elements) of Plato and Aristotle, were thus the incorporeal principles attached to the four great divisions of our Cosmic World, and it is with justice that Creuzer defines those primitive beliefs. . . as a species of magism, a psychic paganism, and a deification of potencies; a spiritualization which placed the believers in a close community with these potencies," (Book IX, p. 850). So close, indeed, that the hierarchies of those potencies or Forces have been classified on a graduated scale of seven from the ponderable to the imponderable. They are Septenary,—not as an artificial aid to facilitate their comprehension but in their real Cosmic gradation, from their chemical (or physical) to their purely spiritual composition. Gods—with the ignorant masses—gods independent and supreme; dæmons with the fanatics, who, intellectual as they often may be, are unable to understand the Spirit of the philosophical sentence, in pluribus unum. With the hermetic philosopher they are Forces relatively "blind," or "intelligent." according to which of the principles in them he deals with. It required long millenniums before they found themselves, in our cultured age, finally degraded into simple chemical elements.

At any rate, good Christians, and especially the Biblical Protestants,

* Movers: "Phoinizer," 282.

+ Weber: " Akad. Vorles," 213, 214, etc.

ought to show more reverence for the four Elements, if they would show any for Moses. For the Bible manifests the consideration and mystic significance in which they were held by the Hebrew Lawgiver, on every page of the Pentateuch. The tent which contained the Holy of Holies was a Cosmic Symbol, sacred, in one of its meanings, to the Elements, the four cardinal points, and Ether. Josephus shows it built in white, the colour of Ether. And this explains also why, in the Egyptian and the Hebrew temples according to Clemens Alexandrinus—a gigantic curtain, supported by five pillars, separated the sanctum sanctorum (now represented by the altar in Christian churches) wherein the priests alone were permitted to enter, from the part accessible to the profane. By its four colours the curtain symbolized the four principal Elements, and signified the knowledge of the divine that the five senses of men can enable man to acquire with the help of the four Elements. (See Stromata I., v. § 6).

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In Cory's Ancient Fragments, one of the Chaldean Oracles" expresses ideas about the elements and Ether in language singularly like that of the Unseen Universe, written by two eminent scientists of our day.

It states that "from ether have come all things, and to it all will return; that the images of all things are indelibly impressed upon it; and that it is the store-house of the germs or of the remains of all visible forms, and even ideas. It appears as if this case strangely corroborates our assertion that whatever discoveries may be made in our days will be found to have been anticipated by many thousand years by our 'simple-minded ancestors.' "—(Isis Unveiled.)

Whence came the four elements and the malachim of the Hebrews? They have been made to merge, by a theological sleight-of-hand on the part of the Rabbins and the later Fathers of the Church into Jehovah, but their origin is identical with that of the Cosmic gods of all other nations. Their symbols, whether born on the shores of the Oxus, on the burning sands of Upper Egypt, or in the wild forests, weird and glacial, which cover the slopes and peaks of the sacred snowy mountains of Thessaly, or again, in the pampas of America, their symbols, we repeat, when traced to their source, are ever one and the same. Whether Egyptian or Pelasgian, Aryan or Semitic, the genius loci, the local god, embraced in its unity all nature; but not especially the four elements any more than one of their creations, such as trees, rivers, mounts or stars. The genius loci― a very late after-thought of the last sub-races of the Fifth Root-race, when the primitive and grandiose meaning had become nearly lost was ever the representative in his accumulated titles of all his colleagues. It was the god of fire, symbolised by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the god of water, symbolised by the fluvial bull or some sacred river or fountain, as Varuna, Neptune, etc.; the god of air, manifesting, in the hurricane and tempest, as Vayu and Indra; and the god or spirit.