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Every astronomer — besides Occultists and Astrologers — knows that, figuratively, the astral light, the milky way, and also the path of the Sun to the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, as well as the circles of the Sidereal or Tropical year, were always called “ Serpents ” in the allegorical and mystic phraseology of the adepts.
This, cosmically, as well as metaphorically. Poseidon is a “ Dragon ” : “ Chozzar, called by the profane Neptune ” (Peratæ Gnostics) ; the “ Good and Perfect Serpent,” the Messiah of the Naaseni, whose symbol in Heaven is Draco.
But one ought to discriminate between the characters of this symbol. For instance : Zoroastrian Esotericism is identical with that of the Secret Doctrine ; and when, as an example, we read in the Vendidad complaints uttered against the “ Serpent,” whose bites have transformed the beautiful, eternal spring of Airyana-Vaêgô, changing it into winter, generating disease and death, at the same time as mental and psychic consumption, every occultist knows that the Serpent alluded to is the north pole, as also the pole of the heavens. * The latter produces the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrates the centre of the earth. The two axes were no more parallel ; hence the eternal spring of Airyana Vaêgô by the good river Dâitya had disappeared, and “ the Aryan Magi had to emigrate to Sagdiani ” — say the exoteric accounts. But the esoteric teaching states that the pole had passed through the equator, and that the “ land of bliss ” of the Fourth Race, its inheritance from the Third, had now become the region of desolation and woe. This alone ought to be an incontrovertible proof of the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian Scriptures. The Neo-Aryans of the post-diluvian age could, of course, hardly recognise the mountains, on the summits of which their forefathers had met before the Flood, and conversed with the pure “ Yazathas ” (celestial Spirits of the Elements), whose life and food they had once shared. As shown by Eckstein (Revue Archéologique, 8th year, 1885), “ the Vendidad seems to point out a great change in the atmosphere of central Asia ; strong volcanic eruptions and the collapse of a whole range of mountains in the neighbourhood of the Kara-Korum chain.”
* Symbolized by the Egyptians under the form of a Serpent with a hawk’s head.
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The Egyptians, according to Eusebius, who for once (and for a wonder) wrote the truth, symbolised Kosmos by a large fiery circle, representing a serpent with a hawk’s head lying across its diameter. “ Here we have the pole of the earth within the plane of the ecliptic, attended with all the fiery consequences that must arise from such a state of the heavens : when the whole Zodiac in 25,000 (odd) years, must have reddened with the solar blaze, and each sign must have been vertical to the polar region.” (See Mackey’s “ Sphinxiad.”)
Meru — the abode of the gods — was placed, as before explained, in the North Pole, while Pâtâla, the nether region, was supposed to lie in the South. As each symbol in esoteric philosophy has seven keys, geographically, Meru and Pâtâla have one significance and represent localities ; while astronomically, they have another, and mean “ the two poles,” which meanings ended by their being often rendered in exoteric sectarianism — the “ Mountain ” and the “ Pit,” or Heaven and Hell. If we hold at present only to the astronomical and geographical significance, it may be found that the ancients knew the topography and nature of the Arctic and Antarctic regions better than any of our modern astronomers ; they had reasons, and good ones for naming one the “ Mountain ” and the other the “ Pit.” As the author just quoted half explains, Helion and Acheron meant nearly the same : “ Heli-on is the Sun in the highest ” (Helios, Heli-on, the “ most high ”) ; “ and Acheron is 32 deg. above the pole, and 32 below it, the allegorical river being thus supposed to touch the northern horizon in the latitude of 32 degees. The vast concave, that is for ever hidden from our sight and which surrounded the southern pole, being therefore called the Pit, while observing, toward the Northern pole that a certain circuit in the heavens always appeared above the horizon — they called it the Mountain. As Meru is the high abode of the Gods, these were said to ascend and descend periodically ; by which (astronomically) the Zodiacal gods were meant, the passing of the original North Pole of the Earth to the South Pole of the heaven.” “ In that age,” adds the author of that curious work, the “ Sphinxiad ” and of “ Urania’s Key to the Revelations ” — “ at noon, the ecliptic would be parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac would descend from the North Pole to the north horizon ; crossing the eight coils of the Serpent (eight sidereal years, or over 200,000 solar years), which would seem like an imaginary ladder with eight staves reaching from the earth up to the pole, i.e., the throne of Jove. Up this ladder, then, the Gods, i.e., the signs of the Zodiac, ascended and descended. (Jacob’s ladder and the angels) . . . . It is more than 400,000 years since the Zodiac formed the sides of this ladder.” . . . .
This is an ingenious explanation, even if it is not altogether free from occult heresy. Yet it is nearer the truth than many of a more scientific
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and especially theological character. As just said, the Christian trinity was purely astronomical from its beginning, which made Rutilius say — of those who euhemerized it — “ Judæa gens, radix stultorum.”
But the profane, and especially the Christian fanatics, ever in search of scientific corroboration for their dead-letter texts, will persist in seeing in the celestial pole the true Serpent of Genesis, Satan, the Enemy of mankind, instead of what it is — a cosmic metaphor. When the gods are said to forsake the earth, it does not only mean the gods, protectors and instructors, but also the minor gods — the regents of the Zodiacal signs. Yet, the former, as actual and existing Entities which gave birth to, nursed, and instructed mankind in its early youth, appear in every Scripture, in that of the Zoroastrians as much as in the Hindu Gospels. Ormazd, or Ahura-Mazda, the “ Lord of Wisdom,” is the synthesis of the Amshaspends (or Amesha-Spenta — “ Immortal Benefactors ”), * the “ Word,” however, or the Logos and its six highest aspects in Mazdyanism. These “ Immortal Benefactors ” are described in Zamyad yasht as the “ Amesha-Spentas, the shining, having efficacious eyes, great, helpful . . . . imperishable and pure . . . . which are all seven of like mind, like speech, all seven doing alike . . . . which are the creators and destroyers of the creatures of Ahura-Mazda, their creators and overseers, their protectors and rulers ”
These few lines alone indicate the dual and even the triple character of the Amshaspends, our Dhyan-Chohans or the “ Serpents of Wisdom.” They are identical with, and yet separate from Ormazd (Ahura-Mazda). They are also the Angels of the Stars of the Christians — the Staryazatas of the Zoroastrians — or again the seven planets (including the sun) of every religion. † The epithet — “ the shining having efficacious eyes ” — proves it. This on the physical and sidereal planes. On the spiritual, they are the divine powers of Ahura-Mazda ; but on the astral or psychic plane again, they are the “ Builders,” the “ watchers,” the Pitar (fathers), and the first Preceptors of mankind.
When mortals shall have become sufficiently spiritualised, there will be no more need of forcing them into a correct comprehension of ancient Wisdom. Men will know then, that there never yet was a great World-reformer, whose name has passed into our generation, who (a) was not a direct emanation of the Logos (under whatever name known to us), i.e., an essential incarnation of one of “ the seven,” of the “ divine Spirit who is sevenfold ” ; and (b) who had not appeared before, during the
* Also translated as “ blissful Immortals ” by Dr. W. Geiger ; but the first is more correct.
† These “ seven ” became the eight, the Ogdoad, of the later materialized religions, the seventh, or the highest principle, being no longer the pervading Spirit, the Synthesis, but becoming an anthropomorphic number, or additional unit.
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past Cycles. They will recognise, then, the cause which produces in history and chronology certain riddles of the ages ; the reason why, for instance, it is impossible for them to assign any reliable date to Zoroaster, who is found multiplied by twelve and fourteen in the Dabistan ; why the Rishis and Manus are so mixed up in their numbers and individualities ; why Krishna and Buddha speak of themselves as re-incarnations, i.e., Krishna is identified with the Rishi Narâyana, and Gautama gives a series of his previous births ; and why the former, especially, being “ the very supreme Brahmâ,” is yet called Amámsávatâra — “ a part of a part ” only of the Supreme on Earth. Finally, why Osiris is a great God, and at the same time a “ prince on Earth,” who reappears in Thoth-Hermes, and why Jesus (in Hebrew, Joshua) of Nazareth is recognised, cabalistically, in Joshua, the Son of Nun, as well as in other personages. The esoteric doctrine explains it by saying that each of these (as many others) had first appeared on earth as one of the seven powers of the Logos, individualized as a God or “ Angel ” (messenger) ; then, mixed with matter, they had re-appeared in turn as great sages and instructors who “ taught the Fifth Race,” after having instructed the two preceding races, had ruled during the Divine Dynasties, and had finally sacrificed themselves, to be reborn under various circumstances for the good of mankind, and for its salvation at certain critical periods ; until in their last incarnations they had become truly only “ the parts of a part ” on earth, though de facto the One Supreme in Nature.
This is the metaphysics of Theogony. And, as every “ Power ” among the seven has (once individualized) in his charge one of the elements of creation, and rules over it, * hence the many meanings in every symbol, which, unless interpreted according to the esoteric methods, generally lead to an inextricable confusion.
Does the Western Kabalist — generally an opponent of the Eastern Occultist — require a proof ? Let him open Eliphas Lévi’s Histoire de la Magie,” p. 53, and carefully examine his “ Grand Symbole Kabalistique ” of the Zohar. He will find, on the engraving given, a white man standing erect and a black woman upside down, i.e., standing on her head, her legs passing under the extended arms of the male figure, and protruding behind his shoulders, while their hands join at an angle on each side. Eliphas Lévi makes of it, God and Nature ; or God, “ light,” mirrored inversely in “ Nature and Matter,” darkness. Kabalistically and symbolically he is right ; but only so far as emblematical cosmogony goes. Nor has he invented the symbol any more
* These elements are : — The cosmic, the terrene, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, the aqueous, and finally the human — in their physical, spiritual, and psychic aspects.
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than the Kabalists have : the two figures in white and black stone have existed in the temples of Egypt from time immemorial — agreeably to tradition ; and historically — ever since the day of King Cambyses, who personally saw them. Therefore the symbol must have been in existence since nearly 2,500 years ago. This, at the very least, for that Persian sovereign, who was a son of Cyrus the Great, succeeded his father in the year 529 b.c. These figures were the two Kabiri personifying the opposite poles. Herodotus (Thalia, No. 77) tells posterity that when Cambyses entered the temple of the Kabirim, he went into an inextinguishable fit of laughter, on perceiving what he thought a man erect and a woman standing on the top of her head before him. These were the poles, however, whose symbol was intended to commemorate “ the passing of the original North Pole of the Earth to the South Pole of the Heaven,” as perceived by Mackey. * But they represented also the poles inverted, in consequence of the great inclination of the axis, bringing each time as a result the displacement of the Oceans, the submersion of the polar lands, and the consequent upheaval of new continents in the equatorial regions, and vice versâ. These Kabirim were the “ Deluge ” gods.
This may help us to get at the key of the seemingly hopeless confusion among the numbers of names and titles given to one and the same gods, and classes of gods. Faber showed already, at the beginning of this century, the identity of the Corybantes, Curetes, Dioscuri, Anactes, Dii Magni, Idei Dactyli, Lares, Penates, Manes, † Titans, and Aletæ with the Kabiri. And we have shown that the latter were the same as the Manus, the Rishis and our Dhyan Cohans, who incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony the Kabiri-Titans were seven great gods : cosmically and astronomically the Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were connected
* Who adds that the Egyptians had various ways of representing the angles of the Poles. Also in Perry’s View of the Levant there is “ a figure representing the South Pole of the Earth in the constellation of the Harp,” in which the poles appear like two straight rods, surmounted with hawks’ wings, but they were also often represented as serpents with heads of hawks, one at each end.
† Faber and Bishop Cumberland would make them all the later pagan personifications, as the former writer has it, of “ the Noetic Ark, and no other than the Patriarch (Noah) and his family ” (!) See his “ Kabiri,” Vol. 1., 136 ; because, we are told, “ after the Deluge in commemoration of the event, the pious Noachidæ had established a religious festival, which was, later on, corrupted by their impious descendants ; demons or hero-gods ; and at length unblushing obscenity usurped the name and garb of religion ” (Vol. I., p. 10.). Now this is indeed putting an extinguisher upon the human reasoning powers, not only of antiquity, but even of our present generations. Reverse the statement, and explain after the words “ Noah and his family ” that what is meant by that patriarch and family is simply the Jewish version of a Samothracian mystery, of Saturn, or Kronos-Sadic and his Sons, and then we may say Amen.
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(a) with At-al-as “ the divine Sun,” and (b) with tit “ the deluge.” But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. Esoterically, the meaning of their symbols depends on the appellation, or title, used. The seven mysterious, awe-inspiring great gods — the Dioscuri, * the deities surrounded with the darkness of occult nature — become the Idei (or Idæic finger) with the adept-healer by metals. The true etymology of the name lares (now signifying “ ghosts ”) must be sought in the Etruscan word “ lars,” “ conductor,” “ leader.” Sanchoniathon translates the word Aletæ as fire worshippers, and Tabor believes it derived from Al-Orit, “ the god of fire.” Both are right, as in both cases it is a reference to the Sun (the highest God), toward whom the planetary gods “ gravitate ” (astronomically and allegorically) and whom they worship. As Lares, they are truly the Solar Deities, though Faber’s etymology, who says that “ lar ” is a contraction of “ El-Ar,” the solar deity, is not very correct. They are the “ lares,” the conductors and leaders of men. As Aletæ, they were the seven planets — astronomically ; and as Lares, the regents of the same, our protectors and rulers — mystically. For purposes of exoteric or phallic worship, as also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, their attributes being recognised in these two capacities by the name of the temples to which they respectively belonged, and those of their priests. They all belonged, however, to the Septenary creative and informing groups of Dhyan Chohans. The Sabeans, who worshipped the “ regents of the Seven planets ” as the Hindus do their Rishis, held Seth and his son Hermes (Enoch or Enos) as the highest among the planetary gods. Seth and Enos were borrowed from the Sabeans and then disfigured by the Jews (exoterically) ; but the truth can still be traced about them even in Genesis. † Seth is the “ progenitor ” of those early men of the Third Race in whom the “ Planetary ” angels had incarnated — a Dhyan Chohan himself, who belonged to the informing gods ; and Enos (Hanoch or Enoch) or Hermes, was said to be his son — because it was a generic name for all the early Seers (“ Enoichion ”). Thence the worship. The Arabic writer Soyuti says that the earliest records mention Seth, or Set, as the founder of Sabeanism ; and therefore that the pyramids which embody the planetary system were regarded as the place of sepulchre of both Seth and Idris (Hermes or Enoch), (See Vyse, “ Operations,” Vol. II., p. 358) ; that thither Sabeans proceeded
* Who became later on, with the Greeks, limited only to Castor and Pollux. But in the days of Lemuria, the Dioscuri, the “ Egg-born,” were the Seven Dhyan Chohans (Agnishwatta-Kumâra) who incarnated in the Seven Elect of the Third Race.
† Clement of Alexandria recognized the astronomical significance of chapter xxv. et seq. of Exodus. According to the Mosaic doctrine, he says that the seven planets help in the generation of terrestrial things. The two cherubs standing on the two sides of the sacred tetragrammaton represent the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
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on pilgrimage, and chanted prayers seven times a day, turning to the North (the Mount Meru, Kaph, Olympus, etc., etc.) (See Palgrave, Vol. II., p. 264). Abd Allatif says curious things about the Sabeans and their books. So does Eddin Ahmed Ben Yahya, who wrote 200 years later. While the latter maintains “ that each pyramid was consecrated to a star ” (a star regent rather), Abd Allatif assures us “ that he had read in Sabean books that one pyramid was the tomb of Agathodæmon and the other of Hermes ” (Vyse, Vol. II., p. 342). “ Agathodæmon was none other than Seth, and, according to some writers, Hermes was his son,” adds Mr. Staniland Wake in “ The Great Pyramid,” p. 57.
Thus, while in Samothrace and the oldest Egyptian temples they were the great Cosmic Gods (the seven and the forty-nine Sacred Fires), in the Grecian fanes their rites became mostly phallic, therefore to the profane, obscene. In the latter case they were 3 and 4, or 7 — the male and female principles — (the crux ansata) ; this division showing why some classical writers held that they were only three, while others named four. And these were — the Kabiri — Axieros (in his female aspect, Demeter) ; Axio-Kersa (Persephone) * ; Axiokersos (Pluto or Hades) ; and Kadmos or Kadmilos (Hermes — not the ithyphallic Hermes mentioned by Herodotus (II. 51) but “ he of the sacred legend,” explained only during the Samothracian mysteries). This identification, due, according to the Scholiast Apollon (Rh. I. 217), to an indiscretion of Mnaseas, is none at all, as names alone do not reveal much. There were still others again who maintained, being as right in their way, that there were only two Kabiri. These were, esoterically, the two Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and exoterically, Jupiter and Bacchus. The two personified the terrestrial poles, geodesically ; the terrestrial, and the pole of the heavens — astronomically, as also the physical and the spiritual man. The story of Semele and Jupiter and the birth of Bacchus, the Bimater, with all the circumstances attending it, needs only to be read esoterically to understand the allegory. The parts played in the event by the fire, water, earth, etc., in the many versions, will show how “ the father of the gods ”
* It is a curious idea — yet one not very far from the truth, perhaps — that speculation of Mackey, the self-made Adept of Norwich, found in his “ Mythological Astronomy.” He says that the Kabiri named Axieros and Axiokersa derived their names (a) from Kab or Cab, a measure, and from Urim, the heavens : the Kabirim being thus “ a measure of the heavens ; ” and (b) that their distinctive names, implying the principle of generation, referred to the sexes. For, “ the word sex was formerly understood by aix ; which has now settled . . . . into sex.” And he refers to “ Encyclopædia Londinus ” at the word “ aspiration.” Now if we give the aspirated sound to Axieros, it would be Saxieros ; and the other pole would be Saxiokersa. The two poles would thus become the generators of the other powers of nature — they would be the parents : therefore the most powerful gods.
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and the “ merry God of the wine ” were also made to personify the two terrestrial Poles. The telluric, metalline, magnetic, electric and the fiery elements are all so many allusions and references to the cosmic and astronomic character of the diluvian tragedy. In astronomy, the poles are indeed the “ heavenly measure ” (vide note supra) ; and so are the Kabiri Dioscuri, as will be shown, and the Kabiri-Titans, to whom Diodorus ascribes the invention of fire * and the art of manufacturing iron. Moreover, Pausanias shows that the original Kabiric deity was Prometheus. (I. ix. p. 751.)
But the fact that, astronomically, the Titans-Kabirim were also the generators and regulators of the seasons, and cosmically the great Volcanic Energies, the gods presiding over all the metals and terrestrial works, does not prevent them from being, in their original divine characters, the beneficent Entities who, symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed humanity with intellect and reason. They are pre-eminently in every theogony — especially in the Hindu — the sacred divine fires, 3, 7, or 49, according as the allegory demands it. Their very names prove it, as they are the Agni-putra (Sons of the Fire) in India, and the genii of the fire under numerous names in Greece and elsewhere. Welcker, Maury, and now Decharme, show the name Kabeiron meaning “ the powerful through fire,” from the Greek word Καίω “ to burn.” The Semitic Kabirim, “ the powerful, the mighty, and the great,” answering to the Greek μεγάλοι δυνατοὶ, are later epithets. They were universally worshipped, and their origin is lost in the night of time. Yet whether propitiated in Phrygia, Phœnicia, the Troad, Thrace, Egypt, Lemnos or Sicily, their cult was always connected with fire ; their temples ever built in the most volcanic localities, and in exoteric worship they belonged to Chthonian divinities. Therefore Christianity has made of them infernal gods.
They are truly “ the great, beneficent and powerful Gods,” as Cassius Hermone calls them (See Macrob. Sat. I., iii., c. 4, p. 376). At Thebes, Koré and Demeter, the Kabirim, had a sanctuary (Pausan. IX. 22 ; 5), and at Memphis, the Kabiri had a temple so sacred, that none, excepting the priests, were suffered to enter their holy precincts (Herodotus I. ii., c. 37). But we must not lose sight, at the same time, of the fact that the title of Kabiri was a generic one ; that the Kabiri (the mighty gods as well as mortals), were of both sexes, as also terrestrial, celestial and kosmic. That, while in their later capacity of the Rulers of sidereal and terrestrial powers, a purely geological phenomenon (as it is now
* The word “ guebra ” comes from Kabiri, gabiri, and means Persian ancient fire-worshippers, or Parsis. Kabiri became gabiri and then remained as an appellation of the Zoroastrians in Persia. (See Hyde’s “ De Religio Persarum,” cap. 29.)
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regarded) was symbolized in the persons of those rulers, they were also, in the beginning of times, the rulers of mankind. When incarnated as Kings of the “ divine Dynasties,” they gave the first impulse to civilizations, and directed the mind with which they had endued men to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences. Thus the Kabiri are said to have appeared as the benefactors of men, and as such they lived for ages in the memory of nations. To them — the Kabiri or Titans — is ascribed the invention of letters (the Devanagari, or the alphabet and language of the gods), of laws and legislature ; of architecture, as of the various modes of magic, so-called ; and of the medical use of plants. Hermes, Orpheus, Cadmus, Asclepius, all those demi-gods and heroes, to whom is ascribed the revelation of sciences to men, and in whom Bryant, Faber, Bishop Cumberland, and so many other Christian writers — too zealous for plain truth — would force posterity to see only pagan copies of one and sole prototype, named Noah — are all generic names.
It is the Kabiri who are credited with having revealed, by producing corn or wheat, the great boon of agriculture. What Isis-Osiris, the once living Kabiria, has done in Egypt, that Ceres is said to have done in Sicily ; they all belong to one class.
That the Serpents were ever the emblems of wisdom and prudence is again shown by the caduceus of Mercury, one with Thot, the god of wisdom, with Hermes, and so on. The two serpents, entwined around the rod, are phallic symbols of Jupiter and other gods who transformed themselves into snakes for purposes of seducing goddesses — but only in the unclean fancies of profane symbologists. The serpent has ever been the symbol of the adept, and of his powers of immortality and divine knowledge. Mercury in his psychopompic character, conducting and guiding with the caduceus the souls of the dead to Hades and even raising the dead to life with it, is simply a very transparent allegory. It shows the dual power of the Secret Wisdom : the black and the white magic. It shows this personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and its power to call to life that which is dead — a very deep metaphor if one thinks over its meaning. Every people of antiquity reverenced this symbol, with the exception of Christians, who chose to forget the brazen Serpent of Moses, and even the implied acknowledgment of the great wisdom and prudence of the Serpent by Jesus himself, “ Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” The Chinese, one of the oldest nations of our Fifth Race, made of it the emblem of their Emperors, who are thus the degenerate successors of the “ Serpents ” or Initiates, who ruled the early races of the Fifth Humanity. The Emperor’s throne is the “ Dragon’s Seat,” and his dresses of State are embroidered with the likeness of the
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gon. The aphorisms in the oldest books of China, moreover, say plainly that the “ Dragon ” is a human, albeit divine, Being. Speaking of the “ Yellow Dragon,” the chief of the others, the Twan-ying-t’u, says : “ His wisdom and virtue are unfathomable . . . he does not go in company and does not live in herds (he is an ascetic). He wanders in the wilds beyond the heavens. He goes and comes, fulfilling the decree (Karma) ; at the proper seasons if there is perfection he comes forth, if not he remains (invisible).” . . . And Kon-fu-tyu is made to say by Lü-lan, “ The Dragon feeds in the pure water of Wisdom and sports in the clear waters of Life.”