E. Seven In Astronomy, Science, And Magic.

Again, number seven is closely connected with the Occult significance of the Pleiades, those seven daughters of Atlas, “the six present, the seventh hidden.” In India they are connected with their nursling, the war God, Kârttikeya. It was the Pleiades (in Sanskrit, Krittikâs) who gave this name to the God, Kârttikeya being the planet Mars, astronomically. As a God he is the son of Rudra, born without the intervention of a woman. He is a Kumâra, a “virgin youth” again, generated in the fire from the Seed of Shiva—the Holy Spirit—hence called Agni-bhû. The late Dr. Kenealy believed that, in India, Kârttikeya is the secret symbol of the Cycle of the Naros, composed of 600, 666, and 777 years, according to whether solar or lunar, divine or mortal, years are counted; and that the six visible, or the seven actual [pg 655] sisters, the Pleiades, are needed for the completion of this most secret and mysterious of all the astronomical and religious symbols. Therefore, when intended to commemorate one particular event, Kârttikeya was shown, of old, as a Kumâra, an Ascetic, with six heads—one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism was needed for another event, then, in conjunction with the seven sidereal sisters, Kârttikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumârî, or Senâ, his female aspect. He is then riding on a peacock, the bird of Wisdom and Occult Knowledge, and the Hindû Phœnix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of the Naros is well known. A six-rayed star (double triangle), a Svastika, a six and occasionally seven-pointed crown, is on his brow; the peacock's tail represents the sidereal heavens; and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden on his body; for which he is also called Dvâdasha-kara, the “twelve-handed,” and Dvâdashâksha, “twelve-eyed.” It is as Shakti-dhara, however, the “spear-holder,” and the conqueror of Târaka, Târaka-jit, that he is shown to be most famous.

As the years of the Naros are, in India, counted in two ways, either by one hundred “years of the gods” (divine years), or one hundred “mortal years,” we can see the tremendous difficulty the non-initiated have in arriving at a correct comprehension of this cycle, which plays such an important part in St. John's Revelation. It is the truly apocalyptic cycle, because of its being of various lengths and relating to various pre-historic events, and in none of the numerous speculations about it have we found any but a few approximate truths.

Against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine ages, it has been urged that Suidas shows the Ancients counting days for years, in their chronological computations. It is to Suidas and his authority that Dr. Sepp appeals in his ingenious plagiarism—which we have already exposed—of the Hindû figures 432. These they give in thousands and millions of years, the duration of their Yugas, but Sepp dwarfed them to 4,320 lunar years,1490 “before the birth of Christ,” as “foreordained” in the sidereal, in addition to the invisible, heavens, and proved “by the apparition of the Star of Bethlehem.” But Suidas had no other warrant for this assertion than his own speculations, and he was not an Initiate. He cites, as a proof, Vulcan, and shows him reigning 4,477 years, or 4,477 days, as he thinks, or again rendered in [pg 656] years, 12 years, 3 months, and 7 days; he has, however, 5 days in his original—thus committing an error even in such an easy calculation.1491 True, there are other ancient writers guilty of like fallacious speculations; Calisthenes, for instance, who assigns to the astronomical observations of the Chaldæans only 1,903 years, whereas Epigenes recognizes 720,000 years.1492 The whole of these hypotheses made by profane writers are due to a misunderstanding. The chronology of the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and Romans, was borrowed from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of Bagavadam that 15 solar days make a Paccham; two Pacchams, or 30 days, make a month of mortals, which is only one day of the Pitara Devatâ or Pitris. Again, 2 of these months constitute a Rûdû, 3 Rûdûs make an Ayanam, and 2 Ayanams a year of mortals, which is only a day of the Gods. It is from such misunderstood teachings that some Greeks have imagined that all the initiated priests had transformed days into years!

This mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became pregnant with results in Europe. At the close of the past and the beginning of the present century, Bailly, Dupuis, and others, relying upon the purposely mutilated accounts of Hindû chronology, brought from India by certain unscrupulous and too zealous missionaries, built quite a fantastic theory on the subject. Because the Hindûs had made of half a revolution of the moon a measure of time; and because a month composed of only fifteen days, of which Quintus Curtius speaks,1493 is found mentioned in Hindû literature, therefore, it becomes a verified fact that their year was only half a year, when it was not called a day! The Chinese, also, divided their Zodiac into twenty-four parts, and hence their year into twenty-four fortnights, but such computation did not, nor does it, prevent them having an astronomical year just the same as ours. They also have a period of 60 days—the Southern Indian Rûdû—to this day in some provinces. Moreover, Diodorus Siculus1494 calls “thirty days an Egyptian year,” or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. Pliny and Plutarch1495 both speak of it; but does it stand to reason that the Egyptians, who knew Astronomy as well as any other nation, made the lunar month [pg 657] consist of 30 days, when it is only 28 days with fractions? This lunar period had an Occult meaning surely as well as had also the Ayanam and the Rûdû of the Hindûs. The year of 2 months' duration, and the period of 60 days also, was a universal measure of time in antiquity, as Bailly himself shows in his Traité de l' Astronomie Indienne et Orientale. The Chinamen, according to their own books, divided their year into two parts, from one equinox to the other;1496 the Arabs anciently divided the year into six seasons, each composed of two months; in the Chinese astronomical work called Kioo-tche, it is said that two moons make a measure of time, and six measures a year; and to this day the aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six months, as they had when visited by Abbé Chappe.1497 But is all this any reason for claiming that when the Hindû Purânas say a solar year, they mean one solar day!

It was the knowledge of the natural laws which make of seven the root nature-number, so to say, in the manifested world, or at any rate in our present terrestrial life-cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its workings, that unveiled to the Ancients so many of the mysteries of Nature. It is these laws, again, and their processes on the sidereal, terrestrial, and moral planes, which enabled the old Astronomers to calculate correctly the duration of the cycles and their respective effects on the march of events; to record beforehand—to prophesy, it is called—the influence which they would have on the course and development of the human races. The Sun, Moon, and Planets being the never-erring time-measurers, whose potency and periodicity were well known, became thus respectively the great ruler and rulers of our little system in all its seven domains, or “spheres of action.”1498

This has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modern men of Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, have had their attention called to this law. Physicians and Theologians, Mathematicians and Psychologists, have repeatedly drawn the attention of the world to this fact of periodicity in the behaviour of “Nature.” These numbers are explained in the Commentaries in the following words:

[pg 658]

The Circle is not the “One” but the “All.”

In the higher [Heaven], the impenetrable Rajah,1499 it [the Circle] becomes One, because [it is] the indivisible, and there can be no Tau in it.

In the second [of the three Rajamsi, or the three “Worlds”], the One becomes Two [male and female], and Three [with the Son or Logos], and the Sacred Four [the Tetraktys, or Tetragrammaton].

In the third [the lower World or our Earth], the number becomes Four, and Three, and Two. Take the first two, and thou wilt obtain Seven, the sacred number of life; blend [the latter] with the middle Rajah, and thou wilt have Nine, the sacred number of Being and Becoming.1500

When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig Vedic divisions of the World—the two-fold, three-fold, six- and seven-fold, and especially the nine-fold division—the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied to Heaven and Earth, Gods and Men, will become clearer to them than it is now. For:

So much so, indeed, that more than one Physician has stood aghast at the septenary periodical return of the cycles in the rise and fall of various complaints, and Naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss to explain this law.

[pg 659]

Dr. Laycock, writing on the “Periodicity of Vital Phenomena,”1503 records a “most remarkable illustration and confirmation of the law in insects.”1504

To all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness remarks very pertinently, as he defends biblical chronology:

Without accepting the conclusions, and especially the premises of the learned founder of “The East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions,” the writer accepts and welcomes his researches in [pg 660] the Occult chronology of the Bible; just as, while rejecting the theories, hypotheses, and generalizations of Modern Science, we bow before its great achievements in the world of the Physical, or in all the minor details of material Nature.

There is most assuredly an Occult “chronological system in Hebrew scripture,” the Kabalah being its warrant; moreover there is in it “a system of weeks,” based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be found in the old Jyotisha.1506 And there are in it cycles of the “week of days,” of the “week of months,” of years, of centuries, and even of millenniums, and more, of the “week of years of years.”1507 But all this can be found in the Archaic Doctrine. And if the common source of the chronology in every scripture, however veiled, is denied in the case of the Bible; then it will have to be shown how, in face of the six days and the seventh (a Sabbath), we can escape connecting the Genetic with the Paurânic Cosmogonies. For the first “week of creation” shows the septiformity of its chronology and thus connects it with Brahmâ's “seven creations.” The able volume from the pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which he has collected in some 760 pages every proof of this septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if the biblical chronology is, as he says, “regulated by the law of weeks,” and if it is septenary, whatever the measures of the creation week and the length of its days may be, and if, finally, “the Bible system includes weeks on a great variety of scales,” then this system is shown to be identical with all the Pagan systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years, in lunar months, elapsed between the “Creation” and the “Nativity,” is a clear and unmistakable connection with the 4,320,000 years of the Hindû Yugas. Otherwise, why make such efforts to prove that these figures, which are preëminently Chaldæan and Indo-Âryan, play such a part in the New Testament? This we shall now prove still more forcibly.

Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts—the Vishnu Purâna and the Bible—and he will find that the “seven creations” of Brahmâ are at the foundation of the “week of creation” in Genesis. [pg 661] The two allegories are different, but the systems are both built on the same foundation-stone. The Bible can be understood only by the light of the Kabalah. Take the Zohar, the “Book of Concealed Mystery,” however now disfigured, and compare. The seven Rishis and the fourteen Manus, of the seven Manvantaras, issue from Brahmâ's head; they are his “Mind-born Sons,” and it is with them that begins the division of mankind into its Races from the Heavenly Man, the manifested Logos, who is Brahmâ Prajâpati. Speaking of the “Skull” (Head) of Macroprosopus, the Ancient One1508 (in Sanskrit Sanat is an appellation of Brahmâ), the Ha Idra Rabba Qadisha, or “Greater Holy Assembly,” says that in every one of his hairs is a hidden fountain issuing from the concealed brain.

And again:

“We six are lights which shine forth from a seventh (light),” saith Rabbi Abba; “thou art the seventh light”—the synthesis of us all—he adds, speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven “companions,” whom he calls the “eyes of Tetragrammaton.”1510

Tetragrammaton is Brahmâ Prajâpati, who assumed four forms, in order to create four kinds of supernal creatures, i.e., made himself four-fold, or the manifest Quaternary;1511 after that, he is re-born in the seven Rishis, his Mânasaputras, “Mind-born Sons,” who became later, nine, [pg 662] twenty-one, and so on, and who are all said to be born from various parts of Brahmâ.1512

There are two Tetragrammatons: the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus. The first is the absolute perfect Square, or the Tetraktys within the Circle, both abstract conceptions, and is therefore called Ain—Non-being, i.e., illimitable or absolute “Be-ness.” But when viewed as Microprosopus, or the Heavenly Man, the Manifested Logos, he is the Triangle in the Square—the sevenfold Cube, not the fourfold, or the plane Square. For it is written in “The Greater Holy Assembly”:

—where they distinguished between Microprosopus, who is called Tetragrammaton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called Ain, the Negatively Existent.1514

Therefore, Tetragrammaton is the Three made four and the Four made three, and is represented on this Earth by his seven “Companions,” or “Eyes”—the “seven eyes of the Lord.” Microprosopus is, at best, only a secondary manifested Deity. For “The Greater Holy Assembly” elsewhere says:

Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male-female Chokmah-Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the very essence of number seven, in its terrestrial significance. Seven stands between four and nine—the basis and foundation, astrally, of our physical world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth.

For Christians and believers, this reference to Zechariah and especially to the Epistle of Peter,1517 ought to be conclusive. In the old symbolism, “man,” chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a “stone.” Christ is the corner-stone, and Peter refers to all men as “lively” (living) stones. Therefore a “stone with seven eyes” on it can only mean a man whose constitution (i.e., his “principles”) is septenary.

To demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that not only does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena of life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chemical elements, and equally paramount in the world of sound and in that of colour as revealed to us by the spectroscope. This number is the factor, sine quâ non, in the production of occult astral phenomena.

[pg 664]

It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting the notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale of chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while both in music and chemistry we find a series of seven octaves represented theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both sciences. Thus, to quote Hellenbach:

It has been established that, from the standpoint of phenomenal law, upon which all our knowledge rests, the vibrations of sound and light increase regularly, that they divide themselves into seven columns, and that the successive numbers in each column are closely allied; i.e., that they exhibit a close relationship which not only is expressed in the figures themselves, but also is practically confirmed in chemistry as in music, in the latter of which the ear confirms the verdict of the figures.... The fact that this periodicity and variety is governed by the number seven is undeniable, and it far surpasses the limits of mere chance, and must be assumed to have an adequate cause, which cause must be discovered.

Verily, then, as Rabbi Abba said:

[pg 665]

The ancient and modern Western American Zuñi Indians seem to have entertained similar views. Their present-day customs, their traditions and records, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institutions, political, social and religious, were, and still are, shaped according to the septenary principle. Thus all their ancient towns and villages were built in clusters of six, around a seventh. It is always a group of seven, or of thirteen, and always the six surround the seventh. Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy is composed of six “Priests of the House” seemingly synthesized in the seventh, who is a woman, the “Priestess Mother.” Compare this with the “seven great officiating priests” spoken of in the Anugîtâ, the name given to the “seven senses,” exoterically, and to the seven human principles, Esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism? Shall we still doubt the fact of Arjuna going over to Pâtâla, the Antipodes, America, and there marrying Ulûpî, the daughter of the Nâga, or rather Nargal, king? But to the Zuñi priests.

These receive, to this day, an annual tribute of corn of seven colours. Undistinguished from other Indians during the rest of the year, on a certain day they come out—six priests and one priestess—arrayed in their priestly robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the priest serves and personifies; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and each receiving corn of the colour corresponding to that region. Thus, the white represents the East, because from the East comes the first sun-light; the yellow corresponds to the North, from the colour of the flames produced by the Aurora Borealis; the red, the South, as from that quarter comes the heat; the blue stands for the West, the colour of the Pacific Ocean, which lies to the West; black is the colour of the nether underground region—darkness; corn with grains of all colours on one ear represents the colours of the upper region—of the firmament, with its rosy and yellow clouds, shining stars, etc. The “speckled” corn, each grain containing all the colours, is that of the “Priestess-Mother”—woman containing in herself the seeds of all races past, present and future; Eve being the mother of all living.

Apart from these was the Sun—the Great Deity—whose priest was the spiritual head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F. Hamilton Cushing, who, as many are aware, became a Zuñi, lived with them, was initiated into their religious mysteries, and has learned more about them than any other man now living.

[pg 666]

Seven is also the great magic number. In the Occult Records the weapon mentioned in the Purânas and the Mahâbhârata—the Âgneyâstra or “fiery weapon” bestowed by Aurva upon his Chelâ Sagara—is said to be constructed of seven elements. This weapon—supposed by some ingenious Orientalists to have been a “rocket” (!)—is one of the many thorns in the side of our modern Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it, on several pages in his Specimens of the Hindû Theatre, and finally fails to explain it. He can make nothing out of the Âgneyâstra, for he argues:

The Shastra-devatâs, “Gods of the divine weapons,” are no more Âgneyâstras, the weapons, than the gunners of modern artillery are the cannon they direct. But this simple solution did not seem to strike the eminent Sanskritist. Nevertheless, as he himself says of the armiform progeny of Krishâshva, “the allegorical origin of the Âgneyâstra weapons is, undoubtedly, the more ancient.”1521 It is the fiery javelin of Brahmâ.

The seven-fold Âgneyâstra, like the seven senses and the seven principles, symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How old is the doctrine believed in by Theosophists, the following Section will tell.