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Let us then fathom this creation of the Patristic fancy still deeper, and find its prototype with the Pagans. The origin of the new Satanic myth is easy to trace. The tradition of the Dragon and the Sun is echoed in every part of the world, both in its civilized and semi-savage regions. It took rise in the whisperings about secret initiations among the profane, and was established universally through the once universal heliolatrous religion. There was a time when the four parts of the world were covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragon ;
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but the cult is now preser ved mostly in China and the Buddhist countries, “ Bel and the Dragon being uniformly coupled together, and the priest of the Ophite religion as uniformly assuming the name of his God ” (“Archæology,” Vol. xxv., p. 220, London). In the religions of the past, it is in Egypt we have to seek for its Western origin. The Ophites adopted their rites from Hermes Trismegistus, and heliolatrous worship crossed over with its Sun-gods into the land of the Pharaohs from India. In the gods of Stonehenge we recognise the divinities of Delphi and Babylon, and in those of the latter the devas of the Vedic nations. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and Python, Krishna and Kaliya, Osiris and Typhon are all one under many names — the latest of which are Michael and the Red Dragon, and St. George and his Dragon. As Michael is “ one as God,” or his “ Double,” for terrestrial purposes, and is one of the Elohim, the fighting angel, he is thus simply a permutation of Jehovah. Whatever the Cosmic or astronomical event that first gave rise to the allegory of the “ War of Heaven,” its earthly origin has to be sought in the temples of Initiation and archaic crypts. The following are the proofs : —
We find (a) the priests assuming the name of the gods they served ; (b) the “ Dragons ” held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity ; and (c) the hierophants of Egypt, of Babylon, and India, styling themselves generally the “ Sons of the Dragon ” and “ Serpents ” ; thus the teachings of the Secret Doctrine are thereby corroborated.
There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some of them of a very vast extent. The most renowned of them were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended towards the Lybian desert, and were known as the Serpent’s catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed the sacred mysteries of the kuklos anagkes, the “ Unavoidable Cycle,” more generally known as “ the circle of necessity ” ; the inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after the bodily death, and when it has been judged in the Amenthian region.
In de Bourbourg’s book, Votan, the Mexican demi-god, in narrating his expedition, describes a subterranean passage which ran underground, and terminated at the root of the heavens, adding that this passage was a snake’s hole, “ un agujero de colubra ” ; and that he was admitted to it because he was himself “ a son of the snakes,” or a serpent. (“ Die Phoinizier,” 70.)
This is, indeed, very suggestive ; for his description of the snake’s hole is that of the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The hierophants, moreover, of Egypt, as of Babylon, generally styled them-
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selves the “ Sons of the Serpent-god,” or “ Sons of the Dragon,” during the mysteries.
“ The Assyrian priest bore always the name of his god,” says Movers. The Druids of the Celto-Britannic regions also called themselves snakes. “ I am a Serpent, I am a Druid,” they exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak is twin brother to the Carnac of Bretagne, the latter Carnac meaning the serpent’s mount. The Dracontia once covered the surface of the globe, and these temples were sacred to the Dragon, only because it was the symbol of the sun, which, in its turn, was the symbol of the highest god — the Phœnician Elon or Elion, whom Abraham recognised as El Elion. * Besides the surname of serpents, they were called the “ builders,” the “ architects ” ; for the immense grandeur of their temples and monuments was such that even now the pulverised remains of them “ frighten the mathematical calculations of our modern engineers,” says Taliesin. †
De Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo-Cohuatl, or Serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. “ I am Hivim,” they say. “ Being a Hivim, I am of the great race of the Dragon (snake). I am a snake myself, for I am a Hivim.” (“ Cartas,” 51 ; “ Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I., 553, et seq.)
Furthermore, the “ War in Heaven ” is shown, in one of its significations, to have meant and referred to those terrible struggles in store for the candidate for adeptship, between himself and his (by magic) personified human passions, when the inner enlightened man had to either slay them or fail. In the former case he became the “ Dragon-Slayer,” as having happily overcome all the temptations ; and a “ Son of the Serpent ” and a Serpent himself, having cast off his old skin and being born in a new body, becoming a Son of Wisdom and Immortality in Eternity. (See Part II. on the Satanic Myth.)
Seth, the reputed forefather of Israel, is only a Jewish travesty of Hermes, the God of Wisdom, called also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Satan. He is also Typhon — the same as Apophis, the Dragon slain by Horus ; for Typhon was also called Set. He is simply the dark side of Osiris, his brother, as Angra Mainyu is the black shadow of Ahuramazda. Terrestrially, all these allegories were connected with the trials of adeptship and initiation. Astronomically, they referred to the Solar and Lunar eclipses, the mythical explanations of which we find to this day in India and Ceylon, where any one can study the allegorical narratives and traditions which have remained unchanged for many thousands of years.
* See Sanchoniathon in “ Eusebius,” Pr. Ev. 36 ; Genesis xiv.
† “ Society of Antiquaries of London,” vol. xxv. p. 220.
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Rahu, mythologically is a Daitya — a giant, a Demi-god, the lower part of whose body ended in a Dragon or Serpent’s tail. During the churning of the Ocean, when the gods produced amrita — the water of Immortality — he stole some of it, and drinking, became immortal. The Sun and Moon, who had detected him in his theft, denounced him to Vishnu, who placed him in the stellar spheres, the upper portion of his body representing the Dragon’s head and the lower (Ketu) the Dragon’s tail ; the two being the ascending and descending nodes. Since then, Rahu wreaks his vengeance on the Sun and Moon by occasionally swallowing them. But this fable had another mystic meaning, since Rahu, the Dragon’s head, played a prominent part in the mysteries of the Sun’s (Vikârttana’s) initiation, when the candidate and the Dragon had a supreme fight.
The caves of the Rishis, the abodes of Tiresias and the Greek seers, were modelled on those of the Nâgas — the Hindu King-Snakes, who dwelled in cavities of the rocks under the ground. From Sesha, the thousand-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu rests, down to Python, the dragon serpent oracle, all point to the secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest Purânas. The children of Surasa are the “ mighty Dragons.” The Vayu Purâna replacing “ Surasa ” (of Vishnu Purâna) by Danayas or Danavas — the descendants of Danu by the sage Kasyapa — and those Danavas being the giants (or Titans) who warred against the gods, they are thus shown identical with the “ Dragons ” and “ Serpents ” of Wisdom.
By simply comparing the Sun-gods of every country, one may find their allegories agreeing perfectly with one another ; and the more the allegorical symbol is occult the more its corresponding symbol in other systems agrees with it. Thus, if from three systems widely differing from each other in appearance — the old Aryan, the ancient Greek, and the modern Christian schemes — we select several Sun-gods and dragons at random, these will be found copied from each other.
Let us take Agni the fire-god, Indra the firmament, and Karttikeya from the Hindus ; the Greek Apollo ; and Mikael, the “ Angel of the Sun,” the first of the Æons, called by the Gnostics “ the saviour ” — and proceed in order.
(1) Agni — the fire-god — is called in the Rig-Veda Vaiswanara. Now Vaisvanara is a Danava — a giant-demon, * whose daughters Puloma and Kalaka are the mothers of numberless Danavas (30 millions), by
* He is thus named and included in the list of the Danavas in Vayu Purâna ; the Commentator of Bhagavata Purâna calls him a son of Danu, but the name means also “ Spirit of Humanity.”
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Kasyapa, * and live in Hiranyapura, “ the golden city,” floating in the air. Therefore, Indra is, in a fashion, the step-son of these two as a son of Kasyapa ; and Kasyapa is, in this sense, identical with Agni, the fire-god, or Sun (Kasyapa-Aditya). To this same group belongs Skanda or Karttikeya (god of War, the six-faced planet Mars astronomically), a Kumâra, or virgin-youth, born of Agni, † for the purpose of destroying Taraka, the Danava Demon, the grandson of Kasyapa by Hiranyaksha, his son, ‡ whose (Taraka’s) yogi austerities were so extraordinary that they became formidable to the gods, who feared such a rival in power.§ While Indra, the bright god of the Firmament, kills Vritra (or Ahi), the Serpent-Demon — for which feat he is called Vritra-han, “ the destroyer of Vritra ” ; he also leads the hosts of Devas (Angels or gods) against other gods who rebel against Brahmâ, for which he is entitled Jishnu, “ leader of the celestial Host.” Karttikeya is found bearing the same titles. For killing Taraka, the Danava, he is Taraka-Jit, “ Vanquisher of Taraka,”
(2.) Now take Apollo, the Grecian sun-god, and by comparing the mythical accounts given of him, see whether he does not answer both
* Kasyapa is called the Son of Brahmâ, and is the “ Self-Born ” to whom a great part of the work of creation is attributed. He is one of the seven Rishis ; exoterically, the son of Marichi, the son of Brahmâ ; while Atharva-veda says, “ The Self-born Kasyapa sprang from Time ” ; and esoterically — Time and Space are forms of the One incognizable Deity. As an Aditya, Indra is son of Kasyapa, as also Vaivasvata Manu, our progenitor. In the instance given in the text, he is Kasyapa-Aditya, the Sun, and the Sun-god, from whom all the “ Cosmic ” Demons, Dragons (nâgas), Serpent, or Snake-gods, and Danavas, the giants, are born. The meaning of the allegories given above is purely astronomical and cosmical, but will serve to prove the identity of all.
† All such stories differ in the exoteric texts. In the Mahabhârata, Karttikeya, “ the six-faced Mars,” is the son of Rudra or Siva, Self-born without a mother from the seed of Siva cast into the fire. But Karttikeya is generally called Agnibhu, “ fire born.”
‡ Hiranyaksha is the ruler or king of the fifth region of Pâtâla, a Snake-god.
§ The Elohim also feared the knowledge of Good and Evil for Adam, and therefore are shown as expelling him from Eden or killing him spiritually.
|| The story told is, that Taraka (called also Kalabhana), owing to his extraordinary Yoga-powers, had obtained all the divine knowledge of yoga-vidya and occult powers of the gods, who conspired against him. Here we see the “ obedient ” Host of Archangels or minor gods conspiring against the (future) Fallen angels, whom Enoch accuses of the great crime of disclosing to the world all “ the secret things done in heaven.” It is Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Surgal and Uriel who denounced to the Lord God those of their Brethren who were said to have pryed into the divine mysteries and taught them to men : by this means they themselves escaped a like punishment. Michael was commissioned to fight the Dragon, and so was Karttikeya, and under the same circumstances. Both are “ leaders of the Celestial Host,” both Virgins, both “ leaders of Saints,” “ Spear-holders ” (Saktidhara), etc., etc. Karttikeya is the original of Michael and St. George, as surely as Indra is the prototype of Karttikeya.
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to Indra, Karttikeya, and even Kasyapa-Aditya, and at the same time to Michael (as the Angelic form of Jehovah) the “ angel of the Sun,” who is “ like,” and “ one with, God.” Later ingenious interpretations for monotheistic purposes, elevated though they be into not-to-be-questioned Church dogmas, prove nothing, except the abuse of human authority and power, perhaps.
Apollo is Helios (the Sun), Phoibus-Apollo (“ the light of life and of the World ” *) who arises out of the golden-winged cup (the sun) ; hence he is the sun-god par excellence. At the moment of his birth he asks for his bow to kill Python, the Demon Dragon, who attacked his mother before his birth, † and whom he is divinely commissioned to destroy — like Karttikeya, who is born for the purpose of killing Taraka, the too holy and wise demon. Apollo is born on a sidereal island called Asteria — “ the golden star island,” the “ earth which floats in the air,” which is the Hindu golden Hiranyapura ; “ he is called the pure, ἁγνὸς, Agnus Dei (the Indian Agni, as Dr. Kenealy thinks), and in the primal myth he is exempt “ from all sensual love ” (“ Book of God,” p. 88). He is, therefore, a Kumâra, like Karttikeya, and as Indra was in his earlier life and biographies. Python, moreover, the “ red Dragon,” connects Apollo with Michael, who fights the Apocalyptic Dragon, who wants to attack the woman in child-birth (See Revelation xii.), as Python attacks Apollo’s mother. Can any one fail to see the identity ? Had the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who prides himself on his Greek scholarship and understanding of the spirit of Homer’s allegories, ever had a real inkling of the esoteric meaning of the Iliad and Odyssey, he would have understood St. John’s “ Revelation,” and even the Pentateuch, better than he does. For the way to the Bible lies through Hermes, Bel, and Homer, as the way to these is through the Hindu and Chaldean religious symbols.
The repetition of this archaic tradition is found in ch. xii. of St. John’s Revelations, and comes from the Babylonian legends without the smallest doubt, though the Babylonian story had its origin in the allegories of the Aryans. The fragment read by the late George Smith (See “ The Chaldean account of Genesis,” p. 304) is sufficient to disclose the source of the xii. chapter of the Apocalypse. Here it is as given by the eminent Assyriologist :
“ Our . . . fragment refers to the creation of mankind, called Adam ; as (the man) in the Bible, he is made perfect . . . but afterwards joins
* The “ life and the light ” of the material physical world, the delight of the senses — not of the soul. Apollo is pre-eminently the human god, the god of emotional, pomp-loving and theatrical Church ritualism, with lights and music.
† See chap. xii. in Revelation where we find Apollo’s mother persecuted by that Python, the Red Dragon, who is also Porphyrion, the scarlet or red Titan.
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with the dragon of the Deep, the animal of Tiamat, the Spirit of Chaos, and offends against his god, who curses him, and calls down on his head all the evils and troubles of Humanity.” *
“ This is followed by a war between the dragon and the powers of evil, or chaos on one side and the gods on the other.”
“ The gods have weapons forged for them, † and Merodach (the archangel Michael in Revelation) undertakes to lead the heavenly host against the dragons. The war, which is described with spirit, ends, of course, in the triumph of the principles of Good. . . . .” ‡
This war of gods with the powers of the Deep, refers also, in its last and terrestrial application, to the struggle between the Aryan adepts of the nascent Fifth Race and the Sorcerers of Atlantis, the Demons of the Deep, the Islanders surrounded with water who disappeared in the Deluge. (See the last pages of Vol. I., “ Isis Unveiled,” Atlantis.)
The symbols of the dragons and “ War in Heaven ” have, as already stated, more than one significance ; religious, astronomical and geological events being included in the one common allegory. But it had also a Cosmological meaning. In India the Dragon story is repeated in one of its forms in the battles of Indra with Vritra. In the Vedas this Ahi-Vritra is referred to as the Demon of Drought, the terrible hot Wind. Indra is shown to be constantly at war with him ; and with the help of his thunder and lightning the god compels Ahi-Vritra to pour down in rain on Earth, and then slays him. Hence, Indra is called the Vritra-Han or “ the slayer of Vritra,” as Michael is called the Conqueror and “ Slayer of the Dragon.” Both these “ Enemies ” are then the “ Old Dragon ” precipitated into the depths of the Earth, in this one sense.
The Zend-Avestic Amshaspends are a Host with a leader like St. Michael over them, and seem identical with the legions of Heaven, when one reads the Vendidad. Thus in Fargard XIX., ii. 13 (42), Zarathustra is told by Ahura Mazda to “ invoke the Amesha Spenta who rule over the seven Karshvares§ of the Earth ” ; which Karshvares in their seven
* No “ god ” who curses his (supposed) own work, because he has made it imperfect, can be the one infinite absolute wisdom, whether called Bel or Jehovah.
† In the Indian allegory of Tarakamaya, the war between the gods and the Asuras headed by Soma (the moon, the King of Plants), it is Viswa-Karma, the artificer of the gods, who forges, like Vulcan (Tubal-Kain), their weapons for them.
‡ We have said elsewhere that the “ woman with child ” of Revelation (xii.) was Aime, the great mother, or Binah, the third Sephiroth, “ whose name is Jehovah ” ; and the “ Dragon,” who seeks to devour her coming child (the Universe), is the Dragon of absolute Wisdom — that Wisdom which, recognising the non-separateness of the Universe and everything in it from the Absolute All, sees in it no better than the great Illusion, Mahamaya, hence the cause of misery and suffering.
§ The “ Seven Karshvares of the Earth ” — the seven spheres of our planetary chain,
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applications refer equally to the seven spheres of our planetary chain, to the seven planets, the seven heavens, etc., according to whether the sense is applied to a physical, supra-mundane, or simply a sidereal world. In the same Fargard (ii. and iii.), in his invocation against Angra Mainyu and his Host, Zarathustra appeals to them in these worlds : “ I invoke the seven bright Sravah with their sons and their flocks ” (42 Vendid. Sâdáh). The “ Sravah ” — a word which the Orientalists have given up as one “ of unknown meaning ” — means the same Amshaspends, but in their highest occult meaning. The “ Sravah ” are the noumenoi of the phenomenal Amshaspends, the souls or spirits of those manifested Powers ; and “ their sons and their flock ” refers to the planetary angels and their sidereal flock of stars and constellations. “ Amshaspend ” is the exoteric term used in terrestrial combinations and affairs only. Zarathustra addresses Ahura Mazda constantly as “ thou, the maker of the material world.” Ormazd is the father of our earth (Spenta Armaiti), and she is referred to, when personified, as “ the fair daughter of Ahura Mazda ” (Fargard, XIX. ii.), who is also the creator of the Tree (of occult and spiritual knowledge and wisdom) from which the mystic and mysterious Caresma is taken. But the occult name of the bright God was never pronounced outside the temple.
Samael or Satan, the seducing Serpent of Genesis, and one of the primeval angels who rebelled, is the name of the “ Red Dragon.” He is the Angel of Death, the Talmud saying that “ the Angel of Death and Satan are the same,” and, killed by Michael, he is once more killed by St. George, who also is a Dragon Slayer ; but see the transformations of this. Samael is identical with the Simoom, the hot wind of the desert, or again with the Vedic demon of drought, as Vritra ; “ Simoom is called Atabutos ” or — Diabolos, the devil.
Typhon, or the Dragon Aphophis — the Accuser in the “ Book of the Dead ” — is worsted by Horus, who pierces his opponent’s head with a spear ; and Typhon is the all-destroying wind of the desert, the rebellious element that throws everything into confusion. As Set — he is the darkness of night, the murderer of Osiris, who is the light of day and the sun. Archæology demonstrates that Horus is identical with Anubis, * whose effigy was discovered upon an Egyptian monument, with a cuirass and a spear, like Michael and St. George. Anubis is also represented
the seven worlds — also mentioned in the Rig-Veda — are fully referred to elsewhere. There are six rájamsi (worlds) above prithivi — the earth, or “ this ” (idám), as opposed to that which is yonder (the six globes on the three other planes). (See Rig-Veda, I., 34 ; III., 56 ; VII., 10411, and V., 60, 6. See § on Chronology.)
* Verse 62, chap. xvii., “ Book of the Dead : ” Anubis is Horus who melts in him who is eyeless.
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as slaying a dragon, that has the head and tail of a serpent. (See Lenoir’s “ Du Dragon de Metz.”)
Cosmologically, then, all the Dragons and Serpents conquered by their “ Slayers ” are, in their origin, the turbulent confused principles in Chaos, brought to order by the Sun-gods or creative powers. In the “ Book of the Dead ” those principles are called “ the Sons of Rebellion.” (See also “ Egyptian Pantheon,” pp. 20, 23.) “ In that night, the oppressor, the murderer of Osiris, otherwise called the deceiving Serpent (Verse 54) . . . . calls the Sons of Rebellion in Air, and when they arrive to the East of Heavens, then there is War in Heaven and in the entire World ” (v. 49, “ Book of the Dead,” xvii.).
In the Scandinavian Eddas the “ War ” of the Ases with the Hrimthurses (frost-giants), and of Asathor with the Jotuns, the Serpents and Dragons and the “ wolf ” who comes out of “ Darkness ” — is the repetition of the same myth. The “ evil Spirits,” * having begun by being simply the emblems of Chaos, became euhemerized by the superstition of the rabble, until they have finally won the right of citizenship in the most civilized and learned races of this globe — since its creation as alleged — and became a dogma with Christians. As George Smith has it : “ The evil principles (Spirits) emblems of Chaos ” (in Chaldea and Assyria as in Egypt, we see) . . “ resist this change and make war on the Moon, the eldest son of Bel, drawing over to their side the Sun, Venus and the atmospheric god Vul.” (“ Assyrian Discoveries,” p. 403.) This is only another version of the Hindu “ War in Heaven,” between Soma, the moon, and the gods — Indra being the atmospheric Vul ; which shows it plainly to be both a Cosmogonical and an astronomical allegory, woven into and drawn from the earliest theogony as taught in the Mysteries.
It is in the religious doctrines of the Gnostics that the real meaning of the Dragon, the Serpent, the Goat, and all those symbols of powers now called Evil, can be seen the best ; as it is they who divulged the esoteric nature of the Jewish Substitute for AIN-SOPH in their teachings ; of the true meaning of which, while the Rabbins concealed it, the Christians, with a few exceptions, knew nothing. Surely Jesus of Nazareth would have hardly advised his apostles to show themselves as wise as the serpent, had the latter been a symbol of the Evil one ; nor would the Ophites, the learned Egyptian Gnostics of “ the Brotherhood of the Serpent,” have reverenced a living snake in their ceremonies as the emblem of WISDOM, the divine Sophia (and a type of the all-good, not the all-bad), were that reptile so closely connected with Satan. The fact is, that even as a common ophidian it has ever been a dual symbol ; and
* These “ evil Spirits ” can by no means be identified with Satan or the Great Dragon. They are the Elementals generated or begotten by ignorance — Cosmic and human passions — or Chaos.
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as a Dragon it had never been anything else than a symbol of the manifested Deity in its great Wisdom. The Draco volans, the flying Dragon of the early painters, may be an exaggerated picture of the real extinct antediluvian animal ; but those who have faith in the Occult teachings believe that in the days of old there were such creatures as flying Dragons, or a kind of Pterodactyl, and that it is those gigantic winged lizards that served as the prototypes for the Seraph of Moses and his great Brazen Serpent. * The Jews had worshipped the latter idol themselves, but, after the religious reforms brought about by Hezekiah, turned round, and called that symbol of the great or Higher God of every other nation — a Devil, and their own usurper — the “ One God.” †
The appellation Sa’tan, in Hebrew sâtân, “ an adversary ” (from the verb shatana, “ to be adverse,” to persecute) belongs by right to the first and cruellest “ adversary of all the other gods ” — Jehovah, not to the Serpent, which spoke only words of sympathy and wisdom, and is at the worst, even in the dogma, “ the adversary of men.” This dogma, based as it is on chapter iii. of Genesis, is as illogical and unjust as it is paradoxical. For who was the first to create that original and hence-forward universal tempter of man — the woman ? Not the serpent surely, but the “ Lord God ” himself, who, saying : — “ It is not good that the man should be alone ” — made woman, and “ brought her unto the man ” (18-22). If the unpleasant little incident that followed was and is still to be regarded as the “ original sin,” then it exhibits the Creator’s divine foresight in a poor light indeed. It would have been far better for the first Adam (of chap 1.) to have been left either “ male and female,” or “ alone.” It is the Lord God, evidently, who was the real cause of all the mischief, the “ agent provocateur,” and the Serpent — only a prototype of Azazel, “ the scapegoat for the sin of (the God of) Israel,” the poor Tragos having to pay the penalty for his Master’s and Creator’s blunder. This, of course, is addressed only to those who accept the opening events of the drama of humanity in Genesis in their dead-letter sense. Those who read them esoterically, are not reduced to fanciful
* See Numbers xxi. 8-9. God orders Moses to build a brazen Serpent “ Saraph ” ; to look upon which heals those bitten by the fiery serpents. The latter were the Seraphim, each one of which, as Isaiah shows (vi. 2), “ had six wings ” ; they are the symbols of Jehovah, and of all the other Demiurgi who produce out of themselves six sons or likenesses — Seven with their Creator. Thus, the Brazen Serpent is Jehovah, the chief of the “ fiery serpents.” And yet, in 2 Kings xviii., it is shown that King Hezekiah, who, like as David his father, “ did that which was right in the sight of the Lord ” — “ brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made . . . and called it Nehushtan,” or piece of brass.
† And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel (Chron. xxi. 1.) “ The anger of the Lord Jehovah was kindled against Israel,” and he moved David to say : “ Go, number Israel ” (2 Samuel, xxiv. 1). The two are then identical.
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speculations and hypothesis ; they know how to read the symbolism therein contained, and cannot err.
There is at present no need to touch upon the mystic and manifold meaning of the name Jehovah in its abstract sense, one independent of the Deity falsely called by that name. It was a blind created purposely by the Rabbins, a secret preserved by them with ten-fold care after the Christians had despoiled them of this God-name which was their own property. * But the following statement is made. The personage who is named in the first four chapters of Genesis variously as “ God,” the “ Lord God,” and “ Lord ” simply, is not one and the same person ; certainly it is not Jehovah. There are three distinct classes or groups of the Elohim called Sephiroth in the Kabala, Jehovah appearing only in chapter iv., in the first verse of which he is named Cain, and in the last transformed into mankind — male and female, Jah-veh. † The “ Serpent,” moreover, is not Satan, but the bright Angel, one of the Elohim clothed in radiance and glory, who, promising the woman that if they ate of the forbidden fruit “ ye shall not surely die,” kept his promise, and made man immortal in his incorruptible nature. He is the Iao of the mysteries, the chief of the Androgyne creators of men. Chapter iii. contains (esoterically) the withdrawal of the veil of ignorance that closed the perceptions of the Angelic Man, made in the image of the “ Boneless ” gods, and the opening of his consciousness to his real nature ; thus showing the bright Angel (Lucifer) in the light of a giver of Immortality, and as the “ Enlightener ” ; while the real Fall into generation and matter is to be sought in chapter iv. There, Jehovah-Cain, the male part of Adam the dual man, having separated himself from Eve, creates in her “ Abel,” the first natural woman, ‡ and sheds the Virgin blood. Now Cain, being shown identical with Jehovah, on the authority of the correct reading of verse i. (chapter iv., Genesis), in the original Hebrew text ; and the Rabbins teaching that “ Kin (Cain), the Evil, was the Son of Eve by Samael, the devil who took Adam’s place ” ; and the Talmud adding that “ the evil Spirit, Satan, and Samael, the angel of Death, are the same ” — (Babba Battra, 16a) — it becomes easy to see that Jehovah (mankind, or “ Jah-hovah ”) and Satan (therefore the tempting Serpent) are one and
* Dozens of the most erudite writers have sifted thoroughly the various meanings of the name J’hovah (with, and without the masoretic points), and shown their multifarious bearings. The best of such works is the “ Source of Measures, the Hebrew Egyptian Mystery.”
† In the above-mentioned work (p. 233 App.), verse 26 of the 4th chap. of Genesis is correctly translated “ then men began to call themselves Jehovah,” but less correctly explained, perhaps, as the last word ought to be written Jah (male) Hovah (female), to show that from that time the race of distinctly separate man and woman began.
‡ See for explanation the excellent pages of appendix vii. of the same work.
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the same in every particular. There is no Devil, no Evil, outside mankind to produce a Devil. Evil is a necessity in, and one of the supporters of the manifested universe. It is a necessity for progress and evolution, as night is necessary for the production of Day, and Death for that of Life — that man may live for ever.
Satan represents metaphysically simply the reverse or the polar opposite of everything in nature. * He is the “ adversary,” allegorically, the “ murderer,” and the great Enemy of all, because there is nothing in the whole universe that has not two sides — the reverses of the same medal. But in that case, light, goodness, beauty, etc., may be called Satan with as much propriety as the Devil, since they are the adversaries of darkness, badness, and ugliness. And now the philosophy and the rationale of certain early Christian sects — called heretical and viewed as the abomination of the times — will become more comprehensible. We may understand how it was that the sect of Satanians came to be degraded, and were anathematized without any hope of vindication in a future day, since they kept their tenets secret. How, on the same principle, the Cainites came to be degraded, and even the (Judas) Iscariotes ; the true character of the treacherous apostle having never been correctly presented before the tribunal of Humanity.
As a direct consequence, the tenets of the Gnostic sects also become clear. Each of these sects was founded by an Initiate, while their tenets were based on the correct knowledge of the symbolism of every nation. Thus it becomes comprehensible why Ilda-Baoth was regarded by most of them as the god of Moses, and was held as a proud, ambitious, and impure spirit, who had abused his power by usurping the place of the highest God, though he was no better, and in some respects far worse than his brethren Elohim ; the latter representing the all-embracing, manifested deity only in their collectivity, since they were the fashioners of the first differentiations of the primary Cosmic substance for the creation of the phenomenal Universe. Therefore Jehovah was called by the Gnostics the Creator of, and one with Ophiomorphos, the Serpent, Satan, or EVIL. (See “ Isis Unveiled,” ii, 184). They taught that Iurbo and Adonai were “ names of Jao-Jehovah, who is an emanation of Ilda Baoth ” (Codex Nazaræus). (See Part II., “ The Fallen Angels.”) This amounted in their language to saying what the Rabbins expressed in a more veiled way, by stating that — “ Cain had been generated by Samael or Satan.”
* In Demonology, Satan is the leader of the opposition in Hell, the monarch of which was Beelzebub. He belongs to the fifth kind or class of demons (of which there are nine according to mediæval demonology), and he is at the head of witches and sorcerers. But see in the text the true meaning of Baphomet, the goat-headed Satan, one with Azaziel, the scape goat of Israel. Nature is the god PAN.
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The fallen Angels are made in every ancient system the prototypes of fallen men — allegorically, and, those men themselves — esoterically. Thus the Elohim of the hour of creation became the “ Beni-Elohim,” the sons of God, among whom is Satan — in the Semitic traditions ; war in heaven between Thraetaona and Azhi-dahaka, the destroying Serpent, ends on earth, according to Burnouf, in the battle of pious men against the power of Evil, “ of the Iranians with the Aryan Brahmins of India.” And the conflict of the gods with the Asuras is repeated in the Great War — the Mahabhârata. In the latest religion of all, Christianity, all the Combatants, gods and demons, adversaries in both the camps, are now transformed into Dragons and Satans, simply in order to connect EVIL personified with the Serpent of Genesis, and thus prove the new dogma. *
* Vide for further details upon the Satanic myth, Part II. on Symbolism, in this volume.