Stanza I. Beginnings of Sentient Life.

1. The Lha, or Spirit of the Earth. 2. Invocation of the Earth to the Sun. 3. What the Sun answers. 4. Transformation of the Earth.

1. The Lha (a) which turns the Fourth29 is Servant to the Lha(s) of the Seven30 (b), they who revolve, driving their Chariots around their Lord, the One Eye31 of our World. His Breath gave Life to the Seven.32 It gave life to the First (c).

“They are all Dragons of Wisdom,” adds the Commentary (d).

(a) “Lha” is the ancient term in Trans-Himâlayan regions for “Spirit,” any celestial or super-human Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies, from an Archangel, or Dhyâni, down to an Angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit.

(b) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our Globe, which is the fourth in the Chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the Ancients had, in their Kyriel of Gods, seven [pg 026] chief Mystery-Gods, whose leader was, exoterically, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, Esoterically, the Second Logos, the Demiurge. The Seven—who have now, in the Christian religion, become the “Seven Eyes of the Lord”—were the Regents of the seven chief planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the Sun, the Moon, nor the Earth. The Sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve Great Gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, Esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos—the subject “anointed” by the Great Breath, or the One—surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven Mystery-Gods of the planets.

“The Seven Higher make the Seven Lhas create the world,” states a Commentary; which means that our Earth—to leave aside the rest—was “created” or fashioned by Terrestrial Spirits, the Regents being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher Ones were the Cosmocratores, the fabricators of our Solar System. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies, such as those of Hermes, of the Chaldæans, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. The Signs of the Zodiac—the “Sacred Animals” or “Heaven's Belt”—are as much the Bne' Alhim—Sons of the Gods or the Elohim—as the Spirits of the Earth; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar Gods or Goddesses, called the Fathers and Mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their “Fathers” and “Mothers”—the latter being interchangeable and varying with each nation—the Gods and their Planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Bel, Brihaspati, etc.

(c) “His Breath gave Life to the Seven,” refers as much to the Sun, who gives life to the Planets, as to the “High One,” the Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas.

In the apocalyptic Shlokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the Purânas. Without the help of the later Commentaries, compiled by generations of Adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the Invisible Logos, with its Seven [pg 027] Hierarchies—each represented or personified by its chief Angel or Rector—form one Power, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter Hierarchy being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the Invisible and—except in the lowest grades—ever-subjective Angels.

Thus—to anticipate a little by way of illustration—every Race in its evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets; Race the First receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the Third Humanity—those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female—is said to be under the direct influence of Venus, “the ‘little sun’ in which the solar orb stores his light.”

The summary of the Stanzas in Volume I showed the genesis33 of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and Absolute Unity. In its primary manifested aspect we have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, Primordial Substance and Force—centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc.; (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the Spirit of the Universe, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the Logos.

This Logos is the apex of the Pythagorean Triangle. When the Triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktys, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple Ray in the unmanifested—its Noumenon.

Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates, is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahman manifests as Mûlaprakriti and then as the Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the “Unconscious Universal Mind,” etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the subject-side of manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual consciousness. Mûlaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of the object-side of things—the basis of all objective evolution and cosmo-genesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmanic [pg 028] latency. It is the transformation into energy of the supra-conscious thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of Matter; hence the “primal impress” so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is not synchronous with the first objectivation of Mûlaprakriti. Nevertheless as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert—a mere abstraction—it is unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds Mûlaprakriti; but, minus Force, Mûlaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.34

The Heavenly Man or Tetragrammaton, who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the Firstborn from the passive Deity and the first manifestation of that Deity's Shadow, is the Universal Form and Idea, which engenders the Manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four-lettered symbol, in the Kabalah, of the Universe itself, also called the Second Logos. The Second springs from the First and develops the Third Triangle;35 from the last of which (the lower host of Angels) Men are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present.

The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the Logos and the Demiurgos, for one is Spirit and the other is Soul; or as Dr. Wilder has it:

Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the Third Logos. The Esoteric meaning of the word Logos—Speech or Word, Verbum—is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting Divine Mind, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Plerôma, so Man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth. It is the Three Heads of the Kabalah—“unum intra alterum, et alterum super alterum.”36 “Every Universe (World or [pg 029] Planet) has its own Logos,” says the Doctrine. The Sun was always called by the Egyptians the “Eye of Osiris,” and was himself the Logos, the First-begotten, or Light made manifest to the world, “which is the Mind and divine Intellect of the Concealed.” It is only by the seven-fold Ray of this Light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the “Creator” of our Planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that “Creator”—good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the origin of evil. This “Creator” is neither good nor bad per se, but its differentiated aspects in Nature make it assume one or the other character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through Space, none of the Sun-Gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the Books of Hermes, and in every ancient folk-lore. It is symbolized generally by the Dragon and the Serpent—the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by the right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the Kalevala,37 the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the spittle of Suoyatar, and endowed with a Living Soul by the Principle of Evil, Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the “thing of evil,” the Serpent or Sorcerer, and Ahti, the Dragon of the white magician, Lemminkainen. The latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin “daughter of the air,” she “who fell from heaven into the sea,” before Creation, i.e., Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult thought in the following few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M. Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen,

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(d) In China the men of Fohi, or the “Heavenly Man,” are called the twelve Tien-Hoang, the twelve Hierarchies of Dhyânis or Angels, with human faces, and dragon bodies; the Dragon standing for Divine Wisdom or Spirit;38 and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven figures of clay—earth and water—made in the shape of these Tien-Hoang, a third allegory.39 The twelve Æsers of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria—a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest tribes about and around the Euphrates—men were created by the “Sons of God,” who descended on Earth, and after gathering seven Mandragoras, they animated the roots, which forthwith became men.40

All these allegories point to one and the same origin—to the dual and triple nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple, as being of spiritual and psychic essence within, and of a material fabric without.

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2. Said the Earth, “Lord of the Shining Face,41 my House is empty.... Send thy Sons to people this Wheel.42 Thou hast sent thy Seven Sons to the Lord of Wisdom (a). Seven times doth he see thee nearer to himself; seven times more doth he feel thee (b). Thou hast forbidden thy Servants, the small Rings, to catch thy Light and Heat, thy great Bounty to intercept on its passage. Send now to thy Servant the same!”

(a) The “Lord of Wisdom” is Mercury, or Budha.

(b) The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well-known astronomical fact, that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than the Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives but twice the amount falling on our insignificant Globe. Whether the fact was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the “Earth Spirit” to the Sun as given in the text.43 The Sun, however, refuses to people the Globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet.

Mercury, as an astrological Planet, is still more Occult and mysterious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the Genius, or God, “established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of the ‘Sun’ of Wisdom.” Pausanias (Bk. v.) shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter. He had wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the Nuntius and Sun-wolf, “solaris luminis particeps.” He was the leader and evocator of Souls, the great Magician and the Hierophant. Virgil depicts him as taking his wand to evoke from Orcus the souls plunged therein—tum virgam capit, hac animas ille evocat Orco.44 He is the Golden-coloured Mercury, the Χρυσοφαὴς Ἑρμῆς whom the Hierophants forbade to name. He is symbolized in Grecian mythology by one of the “dogs” (vigilance), which watch over the celestial flock (Occult Wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or again Agathodæmon. [pg 032] He is the Argus watching over the Earth, mistaken by the latter for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says Vossius:

Vossius here utters a greater Occult truth than he suspected. The Hermes of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindû Saramâ and Sârameya, the divine watchman, “who watches over the golden flock of stars and solar rays.”

In the clearer words of the Commentary:

The Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six Assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhyânis from the Spirit of the Sun. They are his messengers of Light and Life.

Like each of the Seven Regions of the Earth, each of the seven46 First-born [the primordial Human Groups] receives its light and life from its own especial Dhyâni—spiritually, and from the Palace [House, the Planet] of that Dhyâni—physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The First is born under the Sun; the Second under Brihaspati [Jupiter]; the Third under Lohitânga [Mars, the “Fiery-bodied,” and also under Venus or Shukra]; the Fourth, under Soma [the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon] and Shani, Saturn,47 the Krûra-lochana [Evil-eyed], and the Asita [the Dark]; the Fifth, under Budha [Mercury].

So also with man and every “man” [every principle] in man. Each gets its specific quality from its Primary [the Planetary Spirit], therefore every man is a septenate [or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhyâni]. Every active power or force [pg 033]of the Earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Shukra [Venus], who receives a triple supply, and gives one-third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called “Twin-sisters,” but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the “Lord” of Shukra. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the double Sign [the primeval Svastika bereft of its four arms, or the cross, ☩].48

The “double sign” is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative, for the Svastika or 卐 is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever since the birth of Astronomy—imparted to the Fourth Race by one of the Kings of the Divine Dynasty—and also of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a Globe poised over a Cross, and the Earth, as a Globe under a Cross. The Esoteric meaning of this is the Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its species through sexual union. But the later Western nations have not failed to give it quite a different interpretation. They explained the sign through their Mystics—guided by the light of the Latin Church—as meaning that our Earth and all on it were redeemed by the Cross, while Venus—otherwise Lucifer or Satan—was trampling upon it. Venus is the most Occult, powerful, and mysterious of all the Planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to, the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brâhmanism, Venus or Shukra—a male deity49—is the son of Bhrigu, one of the Prajâpati and a Vedic sage, and is Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the primeval giants. The whole history of Shukra in the Purânas, refers to the Third and Fourth Races. As says the Commentary:

It is through Shukra that the “double ones” [the hermaphrodites] of the Third [Root-Race] descended from the first “Sweat-born.” Therefore it is represented under the symbol [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it] [the circle and diameter], during the Third [Race], and [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], during the Fourth.

This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female Nature; for the first ideal World, self-generated and self-impregnated by the universally diffused Spirit of Life—thus also referring to the primitive Root-Race. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all else on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a [pg 034] vertical line, expressive of male and female, not separated as yet—the first and earliest Egyptian Tau; [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom] after which it becomes ☩, or male female separated50 and fallen into generation. Venus (the Planet), is symbolized by the sign of a globe over a cross, which shows the former as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Egyptians symbolized Ankh, “life,” by the ansated cross, or ☥, which is only another form of Venus (Isis), ♀, and meant, Esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and had fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the “Tree of Life” in Eden. Anouki, a form of Isis, is the Goddess of Life; and Ankh was taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It was introduced into the language by Moses, one learned in the Wisdom of the priests of Egypt, with many other mystical words. The word Ankh in Hebrew, with the personal suffix, means “my life”—my being—which “is the personal pronoun Anochi,” from the name of the Egyptian Goddess Anouki.51

In one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the hermaphrodite Goddess Ardhanârî,52 has the ansated cross, the Svastika, the “male and female sign,” right in the central part, to denote the pre-sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel—or the Universe of Brahmâ evolving out of the central point, Nara—is shown in one of the oldest carvings as double-sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmî) standing on a lotus-leaf floating on the water, the water rising in a semicircle and pouring through the Svastika, “the source of generation,” or of the descent of man.

Pythagoras calls Shukra-Venus the Sol alter, the “other Sun.” Of the “seven Palaces of the Sun,” that of Lucifer-Venus is the third in Christian and Jewish Kabalah, the Zohar making of it the abode of Samael. According to the Occult Doctrine, this Planet is our Earth's primary, and its spiritual prototype. Hence, Shukra's car (Venus-Lucifer's) is said to be drawn by an Ogdoad of “earth-born horses,” while the steeds of the chariots of the other Planets are different.

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Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Ushanas-Shukra. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Shukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth.

Shukra, or Venus, is thus represented as the Preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindû allegory, at one time obtained the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor Gods. The Titans of the Western allegory also are as closely connected with Venus-Lucifer, which was identified by later Christians with Satan. And, as Venus, equally with Isis, was represented with cow's horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature—one convertible with, and significant of, the Moon, since all these were lunar Goddesses—the configuration of this Planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer.53 It is owing to the fanciful interpretation of the archaic tradition, which states that Venus changes simultaneously (geologically) with the Earth, that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other, and that many and great were their common changes—it is for these reasons that St. Augustine repeats it, applying the several changes of configuration, colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically-woven character of Venus-Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes of the Planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place 1796 b.c.54

As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that Âsphujit [pg 036] (this “Planet”) adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, “who overgrew its parent and gave much trouble”—a reference to the Occult connection between the two. The Regent (of the Planet) Shukra55 loved his adopted child so well that he incarnated as Ushanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages. Another allegory, in the Harivansha, is that Shukra went to Shiva and asked him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras, from the fighting Gods; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite “imbibing the smoke of chaff with his head downwards for 1,000 years.” This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus—amounting to fifty degrees—and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it relates only to the physical constitution of the Planet. It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyân Chohan, that Occult Mysticism has to deal. The allegory which states that Vishnu was cursed by Shukra to be reborn seven times on the Earth as a punishment for killing his (Shukra's) mother, is full of Occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer to Vishnu's Avatâras, since these number nine—the tenth being still to come—but to the Races on Earth. Venus, or Lucifer—also Shukra and Ushanas—the Planet, is the light-bearer of our Earth, in both the physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well in early times, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his pontiff-name as Lucifer.

Every world has its parent Star and sister Planet. Thus Earth is the adopted, child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind.... All sentient complete beings [full septenary men or higher beings] are furnished, in their beginnings, with forms and organisms in full harmony with the nature and state of the Sphere they inhabit.56

The Spheres of Being, or Centres of Life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their men and their animals, are numberless; not one has any resemblance to its sister-companion or to any other in its own special progeny.57

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All have a double physical and spiritual nature.

The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyânic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom.

It is that Light which condenses into the Forms of the “Lords of Being”—the first and the highest of which are, collectively, Jîvâtmâ, or Pratyagâtmâ [which is said figuratively to issue from Paramâtmâ. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers—appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara]. From these downwards—formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that Light, which becomes on the objective plane gross Matter—proceed the numerous Hierarchies of the Creative Forces; some formless, others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest [Elementals], having no form of their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding conditions.

Thus there is but one Absolute Upâdhi [Basis] in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which, are built for manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on which proceed the universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period.

The informing Intelligences, which animate these various Centres of Being, are referred to indiscriminately by men beyond the Great Range58as the Manus, the Rishis, the Pitris,59 the Prajâpati, and so on; and as Dhyâni-Buddhas, the Chohans, Melhas [Fire-Gods], Bodhisattvas,60 and others, on this side. The truly ignorant call them Gods; the learned profane, the One God; and the wise, the Initiates, honour in them only the manvantaric manifestations of That which neither our Creators [the Dhyân Chohans] nor their creatures can ever discuss or know anything about. The Absolute is not to be defined, and no mortal or immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of Existence. The mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute Life.

“Therefore, man cannot know higher Beings than his own Progenitors.” [pg 038] “Nor shall he worship them,” but he ought to learn how he came into the world.

Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its raison d'être. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Âryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second Part of this Volume; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago:61