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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
[blue] The symbolical colour of magnetism and its Force.
[a lamp . . . in shape . . . like a shallow sauce-boat] The Yoni-shaped Argua, the lamp of the phallic and exoteric, or dead-letter creeds. This is typical.
[broken bread] The broken fragments of the ONE TRUTH, which underlies each and every religion.
[in all four sevens] The four septenaries of the moon, the Occult meaning of the division of the lunar month, which division contains the mystery of generation and birth. This “dream” shows that the “Chela” has entered the phase of practical instruction given so often in symbolical dreams.
[A writer comments on the disputed word Theos in I Timothy, iii, 16 in connection with the various existing Codices. He ends by asking the question: “What is the occult meaning of the ⵙ; and in what sense did St. Paul and his copyists, a few centuries later, use the symbol as an equivalent to the Ineffable God?” To this, H. P. B. replies:]
In the Occult meaning it is the primordial Ideation, the plane for the double-sexed logos, the first differentiation 242of the ever-unknowable PRINCIPLE or abstract Nature, sexless and infinite. The point represents the first formation of the root of all things growing out of the rootless ROOT, or what the Vedantins call “Parabrahm.” It is the periodical and ever-recurring primordial manifestation after every “Night of Brahmâ,” or of potential space within abstract space: not Jehovah, assuredly not; but the “Unknown God” of the Athenians, the IT which St. Paul, the master Mason and the INITIATE, declared unto them. It is the unmanifested LOGOS.
[I own I should like to see phenomena] It is not in the Theosophical Society that our correspondent can ever hope to evoke spooks or to see any physical phenomena.
[Is not the “Esoteric Section” of the T. S. likely to run counter to the views of your Editorial on “Lodges of Magic”? Who is to ensure that the Esoteric Members are not only willing to, but will “abide by its rules”?]
Our correspondent’s question is a natural one—coming from a European. No, it does not run counter, because it is not a lodge of magic, but of training. For however often the true nature of the occult training has been stated and explained, few Western students seem to realize how searching and inexorable are the tests which a candidate must pass before power is entrusted to his hands. Esoteric philosophy, the occult hygiene of mind and body, the unlearning of false beliefs and the acquisition of true habits of thought, are more than sufficient for a student during his period of probation, and those who rashly pledge themselves in the expectation of acquiring forthwith “magic powers” will meet only with disappointment and certain failure.