HPB-SD(ed.1) v.2 p.1 st.5 sl.21

From Teopedia
The Secret Doctrine
The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Verbatim first edition
volume 2 Anthropogenesis, part 1 Anthropogenesis, stanza 5 The Evolution of the Second Race, sloka 21 The “ Shadow,” or the Astral Man, retires within, and man develops a physical body
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ed.1rus


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21. When the race became old, the old waters mixed with the fresher waters (a) ; when the drops became turbid, they vanished and disappeared, in the new stream, in the hot stream of life. The outer of the first became the inner of the second. (b). The old wing became the shadow, and the shadow of the wing (c ).

(a) The old (primitive) Race merged in the second race, and became one with it.

(b) This is the mysterious process of transformation and evolution of mankind. The material of the first forms — shadowy, ethereal, and negative — was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the complement of the forms of the Second Race. The Commentary explains this by saying that, as the First Race was simply composed of the astral shadows of the creative progenitors, having of course neither astral nor physical bodies of their own — this Race never died. Its “ men ” melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own “ sweat-born ” progeny, more solid than their own. The old form vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared in, the new form, more human and physical. There was no death in those days of a period more blissful than the Golden Age ; but the first, or parent material was used for the formation of the new being, to form the body and even the inner or lower principles or bodies of the progeny.

(c) When the shadow retires, i.e. when the astral body becomes covered with more solid flesh, man develops a physical body. The “ wing,” or the ethereal form that produced its shadow and image, became the shadow of the astral body and its own progeny. The expression is queer but original.

As there may be no occasion to refer to this mystery later, it is as well to point out at once the dual meaning contained in the Greek myth bearing upon this particular phase of evolution. It is found in the several variants of the allegory of Leda and her two sons Castor and Pollux, which variants have each a special meaning. Thus in Book XI. of the Odyssey, Leda is spoken of as the spouse of Tyndarus, who gave birth by her husband “ to two sons of valiant heart ” — Castor


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and Pollux. Jupiter endows them with a marvellous gift and privilege. They are semi-immortal ; they live and die, each in turn, and every alternate day ; (ἑτερήμεροι *). As the Tyndaridæ, the twin brothers are an astronomical symbol, and stand for Day and Night ; their two wives, Phœbe and Hilasira, the daughters of Apollo or the Sun, personifying the Dawn and the Twilight. † Again, in the allegory where Zeus is shown as the father of the two heroes — born from the egg to which Leda gives birth — the myth is entirely theogonical. It relates to that group of cosmic allegories in which the world is described as born from an egg. For Leda assumes in it the shape of a white swan when uniting herself to the Divine Swan. ‡ Leda is the mythical bird, then, to which, in the traditions of various peoples of the Aryan race, are attributed various ornithological forms of birds which all lay golden eggs. § In the Kalevala (the Epic Poem of Finland), the beauteous daughter of the Ether, “ the Water Mother,” creates the world in conjunction with a “ Duck ” (another form of the Swan or Goose, Kalahansa), who lays six golden eggs, and the seventh, “ an egg of iron,” in her lap. But the variant of the Leda allegory which has a direct reference to mystic man is found in Pindar 

Pindar shows Leda uniting herself in the same night to her husband and also to the father of the gods — Zeus. Thus Castor is the son of the Mortal, Pollux the progeny of the Immortal. In the allegory made up for the occasion, it is said that in a riot of vengeance against the Apherides ** Pollux kills Lynceus — “ of all mortals he whose sight is the most penetrating ” — but Castor is wounded by Idas, “ he who sees and knows.” Zeus puts an end to the fight by hurling his thunderbolt and killing the last two combatants. Pollux finds his brother dying. †† In

* “ Odyssey,” xi. 298 to 305 ; “ Iliad,” iii., 243.

Chants Cypriaques, Hyg. Tal., 80. Ovid, “ Fasti,” etc. See Decharmes “ Mythologie de la Grèce Antique.

‡ See Brahma Kalahamsa in Book I. Stanza III., p. 78.

§ See Decharmes “ Mythologie,” etc., p. 652.

|| Nem., x., 80 et seq. Theocras, xxiv., 131.

¶ xxxiv., v. 5 ; Theocritus, xxii., 1.

** Apollodorus, III. ii., 1.

†† Castor’s tomb was shown in Sparta, in days of old, says Pausanias (III., 13, 1) ; and Plutarch says that he was called at Argos the demi-mortal or demi-hero μιξαρχαγέτας. (See Plutarch, Quæstiones Græcæ, 23.)


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his despair he calls upon Zeus to slay him also. “ Thou canst not die altogether,” answers the master of the Gods ; “ thou art of a divine race.” But he gives him the choice : Pollux will either remain immortal, living eternally in Olympus ; or, if he would share his brother’s fate in all things, he must pass half his existence underground, and the other half in the golden heavenly abodes. This semi-immortality, which is also to be shared by Castor, is accepted by Pollux. * And thus the twin brothers live alternately, one during the day, and the other during the night. †

Is this a poetical fiction only ? An allegory, one of those “ solar myth ” interpretations, higher than which no modern Orientalist seems able to soar ? Indeed, it is much more. Here we have an allusion to the “ Egg-born,” Third Race ; the first half of which is mortal, i.e., unconscious in its personality, and having nothing within itself to survive ‡ ; and the latter half of which becomes immortal in its individuality, by reason of its fifth principle being called to life by the informing gods, and thus connecting the Monad with this Earth. This is Pollux ; while Castor represents the personal, mortal man, an animal of not even a superior kind, when unlinked from the divine individuality. “ Twins ” truly ; yet divorced by death forever, unless Pollux, moved by the voice of twinship, bestows on his less favoured mortal brother a share of his own divine nature, thus associating him with his own immortality.

Such is the occult meaning of the metaphysical aspect of the allegory. The widely spread modern interpretation of it — so celebrated in antiquity, Plutarch tells us, § as symbolical of brotherly devotion — namely, that it was an image borrowed from the spectacle of Nature — is weak and inadequate to explain the secret meaning. Besides the fact that the Moon, with the Greeks, was feminine in exoteric mythology, and could therefore hardly be regarded as Castor — and at the same time be identified with Diana — ancient symbologists who held the Sun, the King of all sidereal orbs, as the visible image of the highest deity, would not have personified it by Pollux, a demi-god only. ||

* Pindar. Nem. x., 60, Dissen.

Schol. Eurip. “ Orestes,” 463, Dindorf. See Decharmes “ Mythol.,” etc., p. 654.

‡ The Monad is impersonal and a god per se, albeit unconscious on this plane. For, divorced from its third (often called fifth) principle, Manas, which is the horizontal line of the first manifested triangle or trinity, it can have no consciousness or perception of things on this earthly plane. “ The highest sees through the eye of the lowest ” in the manifested world ; Purusha (Spirit) remains blind without the help of Prakrit (matter) in the material spheres ; and so does Atma-Buddhi without Manas.

§ “ Morals,” p. 484 f.

|| This strange idea and interpretation are accepted by Decharme in his “ Mythologie de la Grèce Antique.” “ Castor and Pollux,” he says, “ are nothing but the Sun and


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If from Greek mythology we pass to the Mosaic allegories and symbolism, we shall find a still more striking corroboration of the same tenet under another form. Unable to trace in Genesis the “ Egg-born,” we shall still find there unmistakably the androgynes, and the first three races of the Secret Doctrine hidden under most ingenious symbology in the first four chapters of Genesis.

–––––––
The Divine Hermaphrodite.

An impenetrable veil of secrecy was thrown over the occult and religious mysteries taught, after the submersion of the last remnant of the Atlantean race, some 12,000 years ago, lest they should be shared by the unworthy, and so desecrated. Of these sciences several have now become exoteric — such as Astronomy, for instance, in its purely mathematical and physical aspect. Hence their dogmas and tenets, being all symbolised and left to the sole guardianship of parable and allegory, have been forgotten, and their meaning has become perverted. Nevertheless, one finds the hermaphrodite in the scriptures and traditions of almost every nation ; and why such unanimous agreement if the statement is only a fiction ?

It is this secrecy which led the Fifth Race to the establishment, or rather the re-establishment of the religious mysteries, in which ancient truths might be taught to the coming generations under the veil of allegory and symbolism. Behold the imperishable witness to the evolution of the human races from the divine, and especially from the androgynous Race — the Egyptian Sphinx, that riddle of the Ages ! Divine wisdom incarnating on earth, and forced to taste of the bitter fruit of personal experience of pain and suffering, generated under the shade of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil — a secret first known only to the Elohim, the self-initiated, “ higher gods ” — on earth only. *

In the Book of Enoch we have Adam, † the first divine androgyne,

Moon, conceived as twins. . . . The Sun, the immortal and powerful being that disappears every evening from the horizon and descends under the Earth, as though he would make room for the fraternal orb which comes to life with night, is Pollux, who sacrifices himself for Castor ; Castor, who, inferior to his brother, owes to him his immortality : for the Moon, says Theophrastus, is only another, but feebler Sun.” (De Ventis 17. See Decharme, p. 655.)

* See “ Book of Enoch.

† Adam (Kadmon) is, like Brahmâ and Mars, the symbol of the generative and creative power typifying Water and Earth — an alchemical secret. “ It takes Earth and Water ito create a human soul,” said Moses. Mars is the Hindu Mangala, the planet Mars, identical with Kartikeya, the “ War-God,” born of Gharma-ja (Siva’s sweat) and of the


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separating into man and woman, and becoming Jah-Heva in one form, or Race, and Cain and Abel * (male and female) in its other form or Race —  the double-sexed Jehovah † — an echo of its Aryan prototype, Brahmâ-Vâch. After which come the Third and Fourth Root-Races of mankind ‡ — that is to say, Races of men and women, or individuals of opposite sexes, no longer sexless semi-spirits and androgynes, as were the two Races which precede them. This fact is hinted at in every Anthropogony. It is found in fable and allegory, in myth and revealed Scriptures, in legend and tradition. Because, of all the great Mysteries, inherited by Initiates from hoary antiquity, this is one of the greatest. It accounts for the bi-sexual element found in every creative deity, in Brahmâ-Virâj-Vâch, as in Adam-Jehovah-Eve, also in “ Cain-Jehovah-Abel.” For “ The Book of the Generations of Adam ” does not even mention Cain and Abel, but says only : “ Male and female created he them. . . and called their name Adam ” (ch. v. 5). Then it proceeds to say : “ And Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth ” (v. 3) ; after which he begets other sons and daughters, thus proving that Cain and Abel are his own allegorical permutations. Adam stands for the primitive human race, especially in its cosmo-sidereal sense. Not so, however, in its theo-anthropological meaning. The compound name of Jehovah, or Jah-Hovah, meaning male life and female life — first androgynous, then separated into sexes — is used in this sense in Genesis from ch. v. onwards. As the author of “ The Source of Measures ” says (p. 159) : “ The two words of which Jehovah is composed make up the original idea of male-female, as the birth originators ” ; for the Hebrew letter Jod was the membrum virile and Hovah was Eve, the mother of all living, or the procreatrix, Earth and Nature. The author believes, therefore, that “ It is seen that the perfect one ” (the perfect female circle or Yoni, 20612, numerically), “ as originator of measures, takes also the form of birth-origin, as Hermaphrodite one ; hence the phallic form and use.”

Precisely ; only “ the phallic form and use ” came long ages later ; and the first and original meaning of Enos, the son of Seth, was the First Race born in the present usual way from man and woman — for Seth is no man, but a race. Before him humanity was hermaphrodite.

Earth. He is Lohita, the red, like Brahmâ also and Adam. The Hindu Mars is, like Adam, born from no woman and mother. With the Egyptians, Mars was the primeval generative Principle, and so are Brahmâ, in exoteric teaching, and Adam, in the Kabala.

* Abel is Chebel, meaning “ Pains of Birth,” conception.

† See “ Isis Unveiled,” Vol. II, p. 398, where Jehovah is shown to be Adam and Eve blended, and Hevah, and Abel, the feminine serpent.

‡ See “ Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I., 305 : “ The union of the two create a third Race, etc.”


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While Seth is the first result (physiologically) after the fall, he is also the first man ; hence his son Enos is referred to as the “ Son of man.” (Vide infra.) Seth represents the later Third Race.

To screen the real mystery name of ain-soph — the Boundless and Endless No-Thing — the Kabalists have brought forward the compound attribute-appellation of one of the personal creative Elohim, whose name was Yah and Jah, the letters i or j or y being interchangeable, or Jah-Hovah, i.e. male and female ; * Jah-Eve an hermaphrodite, or the first form of humanity, the original Adam of Earth, not even Adam Kadmon, whose “ mind-born son ” is the earthly Jah-Hovah, mystically. And knowing this, the crafty Rabbin-Kabalist has made of it a name so secret, that he could not divulge it later on without exposing the whole scheme ; and thus he was obliged to make it sacred.

How close is the identity between Brahmâ-Prajâpati and Jehovah-Sephiroth, between Brahmâ-Virâj and Jehovah-Adam, the Bible and the Purânas compared can alone show. Analysed and read in the same light, they afford cogent evidence that they are two copies of the same original — made at two periods far distant from each other. Compare once more in relation to this subject Genesis ch. 4. verses 1 and 26 and Manu I., and they will both yield their meaning, In Manu (Book I. 32) Brahmâ, who is also both man and god, and divides his body into male and female, stands in his esoteric meaning, as does Jehovah or Adam in the Bible, for the symbolical personification of creative and generative power, both divine and human. The Zohar affords still more convincing proof of identity, while some Rabbins repeat word for word certain original Purânic expressions ; e.g., the “ creation ” of the world is generally considered in the Brahmanical books to be the Lilâ, delight or sport, the amusement of the Supreme Creator, “ Vishnu being thus discrete and indiscrete substance, spirit, and time, sports like a playful boy in frolics.” (Vishnu Purâna, Book I., ch. ii.) Now compare this with what is said in the Book, “ Nobeleth’ Hokhmah ” : “ The Kabalists say that the entering into existence of the worlds happens through delight, in that Ain-Soph (? !) rejoiced in Itself, and flashed and beamed from Itself to Itself . . . . which are all called delight,” etc. (Quoted in Myer’s “ Qabbalah,” p. 110). Thus it is not a “ curious idea of the Qabbalists,” as the author just quoted remarks, but a purely Purânic, Aryan idea. Only, why make of Ain-Soph a Creator ?

The “ Divine Hermaphrodite ” is then Brahmâ-Vâch-Virâj ; and that of the Semites, or rather of the Jews, is Jehovah-Cain-Abel. Only the “ Heathen ” were, and are, more sincere and frank than were the

* Jod in the Kabala has for symbol the hand, the forefinger and the lingham, while numerically it is the perfect one ; but it is also the number 10, male and female, when divided.


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later Israelites and Rabbis, who undeniably knew the real meaning of their exoteric deity. The Jews regard the name given to them — the Yah-oudi — as an insult. Yet they have, or would have if they only wished it, as undeniable a right to call themselves the ancient Yah-oudi, “ Jah-hovians,” as the Brahmins have to call themselves Brahmins, after their national deity. For Jah-hovah is the generic name of that group or hierarchy of creative planetary angels, under whose star their nation has evolved. He is one of the planetary Elohim of the regent group of Saturn. Verse 26 of Genesis, ch. iv., when read correctly, would alone give them such a right, for it calls the new race of men sprung from Seth and Enos, Jehovah, something quite different from the translation adopted in the Bible : — “ To him also, was born a son, Enos ; then began men to call themselves Jah or Yah-hovah,” to wit men and women, the “ lords of creation.” One has but to read the above-mentioned verse in the original Hebrew text and by the light of the Kabala, to find that, instead of the words as they now stand translated, it is : — “ Then began men to call themselves Jehovah,” which is the correct translation, and not “ Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord ” ; the latter being a mistranslation, whether deliberate or not. Again the well-known passage : “ I have gotten a man from the Lord,” should read : “ I have gotten a man, even Jehovah.” * Luther translated the passage one way, the Roman Catholics quite differently. Bishop Wordsworth renders it : “ Cain —  I have gotten Kain, from Kânithi, I have gotten.” Luther : “ I have gotten a man — even the Lord ” (Jehovah) ; and the author of “ The Source of Measures ” : “ I have measured a man, even Jehovah.” The last is the correct rendering, because (a) a famous Rabbin, a Kabalist, explained the passage to the writer in precisely this way, and (b) because this rendering is identical with that in the Secret Doctrine of the East with regard to Brahmâ. In “ Isis Unveiled,” † it was explained by the writer that “ Cain . . . is the son of the ‘ Lord ’ not of Adam (Genesis iv. 1.) ” The “ Lord ” is Adam Kadmon, the “ father ” of Yodcheva, “ Adam-Eve,” or Jehovah, the son of sinful thought, not the progeny of flesh and blood. Seth, on the other hand, is the leader and the progenitor of the Races of the Earth ; for he is the son of Adam, exoterically, but esoterically he is the progeny of Cain and Abel, since Abel or Hebel is a female, the counterpart and female half of the male Cain, and Adam is the collective name for man and woman : “ male and female ( Zachar va Nakobeh ) created he them . . . and called their name Adam.” The verses in Genesis from chs. i. to v., are purposely mixed up for Kabalistic reasons. After man of

* See “ Source of Measures,” p. 227. † Vol. II., p. 264, et seq.


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'

'Genesis ch. i. 26 and Enos, Son of Man of ch. iv. v. 26, after Adam, the rst androgyne, after Adam Kadmon, the sexless (the first) Logos, Adam and Eve once separated, come finally Jehovah-Eve and Cain-Jehovah. These represent distinct Root-Races, for millions of years elapsed between them.

Hence the Aryan and the Semitic Theo-anthropographies are two leaves on the same stem ; their respective personifications and symbolic personages standing in relation to each other in this way.

I. The Unknowable, referred to in various ways in Rig Vedic verse, such as “ Nought Was,” called, later on “ Parabrahm ; ” the אין (Ain, nothing, or the “ Ain-Soph ” of the Kabalists), and again, the “ Spirit ” (of God) that moves upon the face of the waters, in Genesis. All these are identical. Moreover, in Genesis, ch. i., v. 2, is placed as verse 1 in the secret Kabalistic texts, where it is followed by the Elohim “ creating the Heaven and the Earth.” This deliberate shifting of the order of the verses was necessary for monotheistic and Kabalistic purposes. Jeremiah’s curse against those Elohim (gods) who have not created the Heavens and the Earth, ch. x., v. 11, shows that there were other Elohim who had.

II. The “ Heavenly ” Manu-Swâyambhuva, who sprang from Swâyambhu-Narayana, the “ Self-existent,” and Adam Kadmon of the Kabalists, and the androgyne man of Genesis ch. 1 are also identical.

III. Manu-swâyambhuva is Brahmâ, or the Logos ; and he is Adam Kadmon, who in Genesis iv., 5, separates himself into two halves, male and female, thus becoming Jah-Hovah or Jehovah-Eve ; as Manu Swâyambhûva or Brahmâ separates himself to become “ Brahmâ-Virâj and Vâch-Virâj,” male and female ; all the rest of the texts and versions being blinds.

IV. Vâch is the daughter of Brahmâ and is named Sata-Rupa, “ the hundred-formed,” and Savitri, “ generatix,” the mother of the gods and of all living. She is identical with Eve, “ the mother (of all the lords or gods or) of all living.” Besides this there are many other occult meanings.

What is written in “ Isis,” although scattered about and very cautiously expressed at the time, is correct :

Explaining esoterically Ezekiel’s wheel, * it is said of Jodhevah or Jehovah : —

“ When the ternary is taken in the beginning of the Tetragram, it expresses the divine creation spiritually, without any carnal sin ; taken at its opposite end it expresses the latter : it is feminine. The name of Eva is composed of three letters, that of the primitive or heavenly

“ Isis Unveiled,” Vol. II., p. 462.


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Adam, is written with one letter, Jod or Yodh ; therefore it must not be read Jehovah but Ieva, or Eve. The Adam of the first chapter is the spiritual, therefore pure, androgyne Adam Kadmon. When woman issues from the rib of the second Adam (of dust), the pure Virgo is separated, and falling “ into generation,” or the downward cycle, becomes Scorpio, emblem of sin and matter. While the ascending cycle points to the purely spiritual races, or the ten prediluvian patriarchs, the Prajâpatis and Sephiroth are led on by the creative Deity itself, who is Adam Kadmon or Yod-cheva. Spiritually, the lower one (Jehovah) is that of the terrestrial races, led on by Enoch or Libra, the seventh ; who, because he is half-divine, half-terrestrial, is said to have been taken by God alive. Enoch, Hermes, and Libra, are one.”

This is only one of the several meanings. No need to remind the scholar that Scorpio is the astrological sign of the organs of reproduction. Like the Indian Rishis, the Patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers, as well as interchangeable. According to the subject to which they relate they become ten, twelve, seven or five, and even fourteen, and they have the same esoteric meaning as the Manus or Rishis.

Moreover, Jehovah, as may be shown, has a variety of etymologies, but only those are true which are found in the Kabala. יהוה (Ieve) is the Old Testament term, and was pronounced Ya-va. Inman suggests that it is contracted from the two words יהויה Yaho-Iah, Jaho-Jah, or Jaho is Jah. Punctuated it is יהְוֺהְַ which is, however, a Rabbinical caprice to associate it with the name Adoni or אַדֹנִיַ, which has the same points. It is curious, and indeed hardly conceivable, that the Jews anciently read the name יהוה (Adoni), when they had so many names of which Jeho and Jah and Iah constituted a part. But so it was ; and Philo Byblus, who gives us the so-called fragment of Sanchoniathon, spelt it in Greek letters ᾽ΙΕΥΩ, Javo or Jevo. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced Yahva, and the Jews Yaho. Prof. Gibbs, however, suggests its punctuation thus : יַהֲוֶה (Ye-hou-vih) ; and he cut the Gordian knot of its true occult meaning. For in this last form, as a Hebrew verb, it means “ he will — be.” * It was also derived from the Chaldaic verb ‬הֶ‫ו̳א‬ or ‫ַ̳ה‬‬וַהְ eue (eva) or eua (Eva) “ to be.” And so it was, since from Enosh, the “ Son of Man,” only, were the truly human races to begin and “ to be,” as males and females. This statement receives further corroboration, inasmuch as Parkhurst makes the verb הוה to mean : (1) “ To

* See for comparison Hosea, xii. 6, where it is so punctuated.


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fall down ” (i.e. into generation or matter) ; and (2) “ To be, to continue ” — as a race. The aspirate of the word eua (Eva) “ to be ” being וה Heve (Eve), which is the feminine of יהוה and the same as Hebe, the Grecian goddess of youth and the Olympian bride of Heracles, makes the name Jehovah appear still more clearly in its primitive double-sexed form.

Finding in Sanskrit such syllables as Jah and Yah, e.g., Jah (navi) “ Ganges ” and Jagan-nâtha, “ Lord of the World,” it becomes clear why Mr. Rawlinson is so very confident in his works of an Aryan or Vedic influence on the early mythology of Babylon. Nor is it to be much wondered at that the alleged ten tribes of Israel disappeared during the captivity period, without leaving a trace behind them, when we are informed that the Jews had de facto but two tribes — those of Judah and of Levi. The Levites, moreover, were not a tribe at all, but a priestly caste. The descendants have only followed their progenitors, the various patriarchs, into thin, sidereal air. There were Brahms and A-brahms, in days of old, truly, and before the first Jew had been born. Every nation held its first god and gods to be androgynous ; nor could it be otherwise, since they regarded their distant primeval progenitors, their dual-sexed ancestors, as divine Beings and Gods, just as do the Chinese to this day. And they were divine in one sense, as also were their first human progeny, the “ mind-born ” primitive humanity, which were most assuredly bi-sexual, as all the more ancient symbols and traditions show. “ Under the emblematical devices and peculiar phraseology of the priesthood of old, lie latent hints of sciences as yet undiscovered during the present cycle. Well acquainted as may be a scholar with the hieratic writing and hieroglyphical system of the Egyptians, he must first of all learn to sift their records. He has to assure himself, compasses and rule in hand, that the picture writing he is examining fits, to a line, certain fixed geometrical figures which are the hidden keys to such records, before he ventures on an interpretation.”

“ But there are myths which speak for themselves. In this class we may include the double-sexed first creators of every Cosmogony. The Greek Zeus-Zēn (Æther), and Chthonia (the chaotic earth) and Metis (water), his wives ; Osiris and Isis-Latona — the former god also representing Æther, the first emanation of the Supreme Deity, Amun, the primeval source of Light ; the goddess Earth and Water again ; Mithras, the rock-born god, the symbol of the male mundane fire, or the personified primordial light, and Mithra, the fire goddess, at once his mother and his wife ; the pure element of fire (the active, or male principle) regarded as light and heat, in conjunction with Earth and Water, or Matter, the female or passive element of cosmical generation ” — all these are records of the primeval divine Hermaphrodite.