Zirkoff B. - EI. Instruction No.2: Difference between revisions

{{Style P-Subtitle|STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL}}

{{Style P-Title|INSTRUCTION NO. II}}

(a) The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute, and therefore to the three higher principles in Man.

(b) The 7 belong to the spiritual, psychic and physical worlds and to the body of man. Physics, metaphysics and hyper-physics are the triad that symbolizes man on this plane.

(c) The 10, or the sum total of these, is the Universe as a whole, in all its aspects, and also its Microcosm––Man, with his ten orifices.

If these three discrete or distributive degrees of being be conceived, according to the symbology of all the Eastern religions, as contained in one Ovum, or EGG, the name of that EGG will be Svabhavat, or the ALL-BEING on the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither center nor periphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a definition, the natural consequences of the limitations of human thought.

Let us see whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the correspondence of planets, metals and colors. And here we are reminded of the modern Orientalist, who, judging on appearances, credits the ancient Akkadians (and also the Chaldeans, Hindus and Egyptians) with the crude notion that the Universe, and in like manner the earth, was like an inverted, bell-shaped bowl! This he demonstrates by pointing to the symbolical representations of some Akkadian inscriptions and to the Assyrian carvings. It is, however, no place here to explain how mistaken is the Assyriologist, for all such representations are simply symbolical of the Khargak kurra, the World-Mountain, or Meru, and relate only to the North Pole, the land of the Gods.<ref>See The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 357.</ref> Now, the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching about the planets and their correspondences as follows:

This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, with the exception of the order of the days of the week, of which, by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, they have made a sore mess, as has been already shown in Instruction I. This is the Ptolemaic geocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following diagram, showing our Earth in the center of the Universe and the Sun a planet, the fourth in number:

In the same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as correspondences. Exoterically there is, in reality, no such association of physical eyes and physical planets; but esoterically there is; for the right eye is the “Eye of Wisdom,” i.e., it corresponds magnetically with that occult centre in the brain which we call the “Third Eye”<ref>See The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, pp. 288 et seq.</ref> while the left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty. The Kabalistic triangle of Kether, Hokhmah and Bînâh shows this. Hokhmah and Bînâh, or Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and the Mother, or, again, the Father and Son, are on the same plane and react mutually on one another.

When the individual consciousness is turned inward a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated Man this conjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, and the Soul, or rather the Spirit, which should not be confounded with Âtman (the Super-Spirit), is then said to have the “Single Eye.” Esoterically, in other words, the “Third Eye” is active. Now Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus Aphrodite, and thus their conjunction in man on the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely Spiritual Man is, however, entirely disconnected from sex. The Spiritual Man corresponds directly with the higher “colored circles,” the Divine Prism which emanates from the One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the Sephîrôth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. And these “Voices” are lower than the “Colors,” for they are the seven lower Sephîrôth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the Zohar (ii, 81, 6) shows, and even the Old Testament also. For, when properly translated, verse 18 of chapter xx, Exodus, would read: “And the people saw the Voices” (or Sounds, not the “thunderings”, as now translated); and these Voices or Sounds are the Sephîrôth.<ref>A. Franck, La Kabbale, ou la philosophie religieuse des Hébreux, Paris, Hachette, 2nd ed., p. 314.</ref>

In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the “Breath of Lives” (Genesis ii, 7), are here said to correspond with the Sun and Moon, as Brahmâ-Prajâpati and Vâch, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quaternary, viz., two eyes and {{Page aside|546}}two nostrils, Mercury and Venus, Sun and Moon, constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian Angels of the Four Corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern esoteric philosophy, which, however, adds that the Sun is not a planet, but the central star of our system, and the Moon a dead planet, from which all the principles are gone, both being substitutes, the one for an invisible intra-Mercurial planet, and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the Four Mahârâjas of The Secret Doctrine,<ref> Vol. I, p. 122.</ref> the “Four Holy Ones” connected with Karma and Humanity, Kosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, or its substitute Michael; Moon, or substitute Gabriel; Mercury, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel. It need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves, being only physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric System, but, as a rule, their cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual forces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven physical planets, which are the lower Sephîrôth of the Kabala and our triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized, or rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown. All this will be demonstrated.<ref>Meanwhile we point out for confirmation Origen’s works, who says that “the seven ruling daimons” (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the lion-like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel, etc. [Contra Celsum, VI § xxx] and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephîrôth. The Sephîrôthal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Prophyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called.</ref>

Then, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the psychic principles in Diagram I appear the reverse of those in Plate I. This, again, is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary, changing with every school. Some schools count three, some four, some six, and others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. In Plate I, the numbers of the principles disagree with the numbers used in Diagram I, simply because the first are those hitherto used in the semi-exoteric teachings of Theosophy, for instance in Esoteric Buddhism. As said in The Secret Doctrine,<ref>Vol. I, p. 122.</ref> since the fourteenth century the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chelas, the other for the outer circle, or lay Chelas. Mr. Sinnett was distinctly told in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he could not be taught the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged Disciples of the Inner Circle. Therefore, it would perhaps simplify matters if each student would add to the exoteric enumeration of the order in Plate I the secret one as given in Diagram II. But even that would require special study. The {{Page aside|547}}numbers and principles do not go in regular sequence, like the skins of an onion, but the student must work out for himself the number appropriate to each of his principles, when the time comes for him to enter upon practical study. The above will suggest to the student the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their appropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by association with their corresponding centers of action, colors, sounds, etc, until these become inseparable.

The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in The Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, leads to another apparently perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. In Plate I, it will be seen that the principles numbered 3 and 2, viz., Linga-Sarira and Prâna, or Jîva, stand in the reverse order to that given in Diagram I. A moment’s consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, as printed in Plate I, and the esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I, Linga-Sarira is defined as the vehicle of Prâna, or Jîva, the life-principle, and as such must, on the esoteric plane, of necessity be inferior to Prâna, not superior as the exoteric enumeration in Plate I would suggest.

The Linga-Sarira is the double, or protoplasmic antetype of the body, which is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by conception of Prâna, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred Mythoi, this has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho-physical application. To close the subject, Prâna, the life-principle, can, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally applicable to Prâna-Jîva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not through or by number, but geometrically, i.e., following the proportions of numbers.

|Yellow<ref>Esoterically, indigo or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive color. Manas being dual in its nature, as is its sidereal symbol, the planet Venus, which is both the morning and evening star, the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the color of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified color of the heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas towards Buddhi, or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This color is obtained from the indigoferra tinctoria, a plant of the highest occult properties in India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper. This is shown by the indigo assuming a coppery luster, especially when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the East without being based on a logical and demonstrable reason. Therefore Eastern symbologists from the earliest ages have connected the spiritual and animal minds of man, the one with dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with pure green.,</ref>

Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the exoteric Kabalistic Astrology is by this method distributed over the entire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of color from black to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as colors, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural colors of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to the Earth, and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of our physical organs. White is the absence of all colors, and therefore no color; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative aspect of white. The seven prismatic colors are direct emanations from the Seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon and relation to one of the human principles, since each of these Hierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human principle. Each prismatic color is called in Occultism the “Father of the Sound” which corresponds to it; sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its Father-Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every color with a definite sound, a fact well recognized in modern science (e.g., Francis Galton’s Nature and Nurture<ref>[Title altered later to: Inquiry into Human Faculty and its Development, New York, 1883.]</ref>). But black and white are entirely negative colors, and have no representatives in the world of subjective being.

Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the planetary bodies in the human brain also is defined thus: there are seven primary {{Page aside|550}}groups of faculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh through the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct esoterically. But when it is further said that: Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury, the intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun, the governing faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon, the instincts;––we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading. For, in the first place, the physical planets can rule only the physical body and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual faculties are influenced by the occult properties of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in Diagram II, leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1) color; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into the physical metals; (5) then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into the plants, giving them color and smell, both of which “properties” depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; (7) and finally culminates in the “principles” of man.

Thus we see the divine essence of our Progenitors in heaven circling through seven stages; spirit becoming matter, and matter returning to spirit. As there is sound in nature which is inaudible, so there is color which is invisible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces color, sound and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms and molecules. Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the synthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is that which the Chinese call the “Great Tone,” or Kung. It is, even by scientific confession, the actual tonic of nature, held by musicians to be the middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the voice of nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage of a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city; in the wind, the tempest and the storm: in short, in everything in nature which has a voice or produces sound. To the hearing of all who hearken, it culminates in a single definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F, or Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, that wherein lies the difference between the exoteric and the esoteric nomenclature and symbolism will be evident to the student of Occultism. In short, Kabalistic Astrology as practiced in Europe, is the semi-esoteric secret science, adapted for the outer and not the inner circle. It is, furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to conceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adopts its correspondences on the mere appearances of things, {{Page aside|551}}esoteric philosophy, which concerns itself pre-eminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols as cover the whole ground, i.e., such symbols as yield a spiritual as well as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has done excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the existence of a Secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of Mediaeval Ages and their dark bigotry up to the present day, when all danger has disappeared.

The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric radii, or the distance of their several orbits from the Earth as a centre, viz.: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. In the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial triad of supreme power in the physical manifested universe, or Brahmâ, Vishnu and Śiva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass, and elements. Thus:

But Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is obsolutely necessary to preface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of the real meaning of the word Magic.

<center><big>'''WHAT MAGIC IS, IN REALITY'''</big></center>

[The superior numbers in the following pages refer to corresponding numbers in the Compiler’s Notes at end of this Instruction.]

Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and in divine magic,<ref>Magic, Magia, means in its spiritual, secret sense, the “Great Life” or divine life in spirit. The root is magh, as seen in the Sanskrit mahat, Zend mazas, Greek megas ['''μέγας'''], and Latin magnus, all signifying “great.”</ref> inseparableness from our divine Selves––the latter meaning something else besides our own higher spirit. Thus, before proceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may perhaps {{Page aside|552}}be useful to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of this most misunderstood word “magic.” Many are those willing and eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the science itself. Now, very few of our American and European students can derive benefit from Sanskrit works or even their translations, as these translations are for the most part merely blinds to the uninitiated. I therefore propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from Neo-Platonic works. These are accessible in translations; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus the Gnôsis, both pre-Christian and post-Christian, will serve our purpose admirably.

There are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus<ref>For further information on this subject students are referred to Simon Magus, an essay, written by G. R. S. Mead.</ref> and the little that is told about him in the Acts,<ref>Acts viii, 9, 10.</ref> but very few who have even heard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is to be found only in the prejudiced, half-fantastic records about him in the works of the Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Epiphanius and St. Justin and especially in the anonymous Philosophumena.1 Yet he is an historical character, and the appellation of “Magus” was given to him and was accepted by all his contemporaries, including the heads of the Christian Church, as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he possessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine) or a black (infernal) magician. In this respect, opinion has always been made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of the chronicler.

Simon, as all the other Gnostics, taught that our world was created by the lower angels, whom he called Aeôns ['''αἰών''']. He mentions only three degrees of such, because it was and is useless, as explained in The Secret Doctrine, to teach anything about the four higher ones, and he therefore begins at the plane of globes A and G. His system is as near to occult truth as any, so that we may examine it, as well as his own and Menander’s claims about “magic,” to find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all manifested creation was Fire ['''πυρ''']. It is, with him as with us, the Universal Principle, the Infinite Potency born from the concealed Potentiality. This Fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was dual, having a manifested and a concealed or secret side.

“The secret side of Fire is concealed in its evident (or objective) side,” he writes,<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i (De Simone), § 9 (ed. Cruice, p. 247).</ref> which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of stating Plato’s idea of the Intelligible ('''τὸ νοητόν''', to noeton) and Sensible ('''τὸ αἰσθητόν''', to aistheton), and Aristotle’s teaching on the Power or Potentiality ('''δύναμις''', dynamis) and Actual Existence ('''ἐνέργεια''', energeia). For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained all. And thus all the parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, are susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial emanation are our Dhyâni-Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher Aeôns. This “Fire” is the symbol of the active and living side of divine nature. Behind it lay “infinite Potentiality in Potentiality,” which Simon named “that which has stood, stands and will stand” ['''ὁ ἐστῶς''', '''στας''', '''στησόμενος''', o estôs, stas, stesomenos] or permanent stability and personified Immutability.

From the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the objective side of Fire being the Mother, the secret side of it being the Father. Simon called these emanations Syzygies ['''συζυγία'''] (a united pair or couple), for they emanated two-by-two, one as an active and the other as a passive Aeôn. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: Mind ('''νοῦς''', Nous ) and Thought ('''ἐπίνοια''', Epinoia),<ref>[Irenaeus and Epiphanius both call this second partner in the first pair of “Roots” '''Εννοία''', Ennoia.]</ref> Voice ('''φωνή''', Phone) and Name ('''ὄνομα''', Onoma), Reason ('''λογισμός''', Logismos) and Reflection ('''ἐνθύμησις''', Enthumesis),<ref>[The Abbé Cruice translated Enthumesis as “Conception.”]</ref> the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six Aeôns of the Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says: “Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite Potency [of its parent] but it was there only in Potency, and not in Act. That Potency had to be called forth (or conformed) through an image in order that it should manifest in all its essence, virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated Potency become similar to its parent, the eternal and infinite Potency, If, on the contrary, it remained simply potentially in the six Potencies and failed to be conformed through an image, then the Potency would not pass into action, {{Page aside|554}}but would get lost”;<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 12 (ed. Cruice, p. 250).</ref> in clearer terms, it would become atrophied, as the modern expression goes.

Now, what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all things to the Infinite Potency the Aeôns had to imitate it in its action, and becoming themselves, in their turn, emanative principles, as was their parent, giving life to new beings, and becoming Potencies in actu themselves? To produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyâúakti,<ref>See The Secret Doctrine, Index, sub voce.</ref> is the direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own action. That power, then, is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial Aeôns and even in the secondary emanations, by the very fact of their and our descent from the One Primordial Principle, the infinite Power, or Potency. Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six Aeôns, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into Act, and emanated, in their turn, six secondary Aeôns, which were each synthesized by their respective Parent. In the Philosophumena we read that Simon compared the Aeôns to the “Tree of Life.” “ ‘It is written,’ said Simon in The Great Revelation ('''ἡ μεγάλη  ἀπόφασις''', he Megale Apophasis),<ref>[Also called the Great Announcement or Declaration.]</ref> of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author, ‘that there are two ramifications of the universal Aeôns, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sige (Silence).<ref>['''σιγὴ ἀκατάληπτος''', Sige akataleptos.]</ref> One of these [series of Aeôns] appears from above. This is the Great Potency, Universal Mind [or Divine Ideation, the Mahat of the Hindus]: it orders all things and is male. The other is from below, for it is the Great [manifested] Thought, the female Aeôn, generating all things. These [two kinds of Aeôns] corresponding<ref>Literally standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.</ref> with each other, have conjunction and manifest the middle distance [the intermediate sphere, or plane], the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end’.”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 18 (ed. Cruice, 261).</ref> This female “Air” is our Ether, or the Kabalistic Astral Light. It is, then, the Second World of Simon, born of FIRE, the principle of everything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the Intelligent, Divine Flame, omnipresent and infinite. In Simon’s system, this Second World was ruled by a Being, or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and bad. This Parent-Being, like the primordial infinite Potency, is also called “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” so long as the manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated in actu and became like unto its own Parent, it was not dual or androgyne.

 

 

“He (Simon) calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth: the male looks down from on high and takes thought for his Syzygy (or Spouse), for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to Earth ”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 13 (ed. Cruice, 251).</ref>

It thus follows that every rational being––called Man on Earth––is of the same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the {{Page aside|556}}higher Aeôns, the primordial seven. It is for him to develop, “with the image before him of the highest,” by imitation in actu, the Potency with which the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed.2 Here we may again quote with advantage from the Philosophumena:

“So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable (principle) is concealed in everything in potency, not in act. This is ‘that which has stood stands and will stand,’ viz: that which has stood above in ingenerable Potency, that which stands below in the stream of the waters generated in an image, that which will stand above, beside the blissful Infinite Potency, if it makes itself like unto this image. For three, he says, are they that stand, and without these three Aeôns of stability, there is no adornment of the generable which, according to them [the Simonians], is borne on the water, and being moulded according to the similitude is a perfect and celestial (Aeôn), in no manner of thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say; ‘I and thou [are] one; before me [wast] thou; that which is after thee [is] I.’ This, he says, is the one Potency divided into above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking itself finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse, daughter and son, one, for it is the Root of all.”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 17 (ed. Cruice, 258-59).</ref>

Truly says Jeremiah,<ref>Jeremiah i, 5.</ref> quoting the “Word of the Lord:” “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee”; for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Aeôn, or Divine Man, both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as occult as what is given in Instruction No. I. For the terrestrial Paradise {{Page aside|557}}is the Womb, says Simon,<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI. ch. i, § 14 (ed. Cruice, 254).</ref> Eden the region surrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; this cord is divided into four Heads, the streams that flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the Foetus, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to Simon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion, fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta.<ref>At first there are the omphalo-mesenteric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the “vascular area” on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed. As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the Foetus and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the used-up blood from the foetus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus science corroporates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology. While this Instruction was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson (E.S.T.) which were printed in 1884 and 1888, and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the foetal nutrition as advanced in Instruction No. I. Briefly, the foetus is nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any of our members care to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson’s Remark on the Nutrition of the Foetus (Wood & Co., New York). [Read before the San Francisco Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, April 12, 1888.]</ref>

The above is given for the elucidation of that which is to follow. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were instructed by him in magic. They made use of so-called “exorcisms” (as in the New Testament), incantations, philtres; believed in dreams and visions, and produced them at will; and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them. Simon Magus was called “the Great Power of God” literally “the Potency of the Deity which is called Great.” That which was then termed Magic we now call Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.

His direct disciple, Menander,3 was also a great Magician. Says Irenaeus, among other writers: “The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.”<ref>[Adv. Haer., I, xxiii, 5.]</ref> Thus both master and pupil are shown to have attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, powers which can be obtained only through “the help of the Devil,” as Christians claim; and yet their “works” were identical with those spoken of in the New Testament, wherein such phenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are, therefore, believed in and accepted as coming from and through {{Page aside|558}}God. But the question is, have these so-called “miracles” of the “Christ” and Apostles ever been explained any more than the magical achievements of so-called sorcerers and magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word “miracle.” Let us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic.

The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill-fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in Philosophumena, or the third Aeôns, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third Aeôns possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him that divine spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man’s committing the original sin as the angels had committed it aeôns before by refusing to create.<ref>The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II (consult Index, s.v. Angels).</ref> Finally, after detaining the Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through ages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on earth to rescue this “lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief rites of this kind of magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helena.” It was the marriage of Nous (Âtma-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and {{Page aside|559}}are endowed with divine powers. For Âtman in man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial divine Fire (or the eternal and universal “that which has stood, stands and will stand”), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the “Father” in her turn, and also Will. She is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” thus becoming in conjunction with Manas, male-female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia, Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Śakti of the inner man, the female potency.

Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of ENNOIA ('''Έννοια''', Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him, (i.e., after initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no older,” become “immortal.”<ref>Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib. III, cap. xxvi (p. 98).</ref> The “resurrection” promised by Menander meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man’s immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Râja-Yogis–– Magic.

Every person who has read Neo-Platonic philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Iamblichus, the author of the De Mysteriis, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Science of Râja-Yoga.

Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, divine, and exalted above all others. “It is the great remedy for all. . . . It neither takes its source in, nor is limited to, the body or its passions, to the human compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our upper Gods,” our divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to the primeval divine Fire.<ref>De Mysteriis, p. 100, lines 10-19; p. 109, fol. i.</ref>

Iamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad demons who deceive men (the spooks of the séance-room), as vehemently as he exalts divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the Theurgist must imperatively be “a man of high morality and a chaste soul.” The other kind of magic is used only by impure, selfish men and has nothing of the divine in it. . . . No real Vates would ever consent to find in its communications anything coming from our higher Gods. . . . Thus one (Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other, subjection to our lower nature. . . . One requires {{Page aside|560}}holiness of the soul, a holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the desecration of it (the Soul). . . .One is the union with the Gods (with one’s God), the source of all Good; the other, intercourse with demons (Elementals), which, unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us step by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short: “Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers, supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is consolidated in their [the Gods’] actions and intelligences, until it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the Egyptians.”<ref>De Mysteriis, p. 290, lines 15-18 et seq., caps. V & VII.</ref>

Now Iamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia ['''μαντεία'''] which is Samâdhi, the highest trance.<ref>Ibid., p. 100, Sect. III, cap. III.</ref> He speaks also of dream which is divine vision, when man re-becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or Râja-Yoga, a man arrives at: (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the plane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstasy and Illumination; (3) Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will); (4) and Domination over the minor, senseless Demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our purified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter. And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.

But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study, it is idle to anthropomorphize the formless. By “formless” I mean the higher and the lower Gods, the supermundane as well as mundane Spirits, or Beings, which to beginners can be revealed only in Colors and Sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which to the untrained intellect, to the Chela, will be visible only by its Aura. The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums belong to one or another of the only three categories they can see: (a) Astrals of living men; (b) Nirmânakâyas (Adepts, good or bad, whose bodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in their ethereal personalities); and (c) Spooks, Elementaries and Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed {{Page aside|561}}from the Astral Light in general, or from figures in the “mind’s eye” of the audience, or of the medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective Auras.

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