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| item title = EI : Instruction No. II
| item author = Blavatsky H.P.
| volume = 12
| pages = 542-580
| publications =
| scrapbook =
| previous = Zirkoff B. - EI : Instruction No. I
| next = Zirkoff B. - EI : Instruction No. III
| alternatives = [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v12/y1890_054.htm KH]
| translations =
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<center><big>STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL</big></center>
<center><big>NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON</big></center>
<center><big>DEMAND TO THE AGENT OF THE HEAD OF THE E.S.T</big></center>
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{{Style P-Title|INSTRUCTION NO. II}}
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In view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present Instruction will begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure in the preceding one, as well as some statements in which there was an appearance of contradiction.
Astrologers, of whom there are many among the Esotericists, are likely to be puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings; whilst those who know nothing of the subject may perhaps find themselves opposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric systems of the Kabala and Astrology. For, let it be distinctly known, nothing of that which is printed broadcast, and available to every student in public libraries or museums, is really esoteric, but is either mixed with deliberate “blinds,” or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete glossary of occult terms.
The following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the student in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the preceding Instruction.
In Diagram I, it will be observed that the 3, 7, and 10 centres are respectively as follows:
(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.
Laying aside, for the moment, the Higher Decad (Kosmos) and the Lower Decad (Man), the first three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the Human Being, as well as to the Higher Supersensual World. The lower four, or the four aspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole being synthesized by the Absolute.
{{Page aside|543}}
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.
In Diagram II, as already stated therein, no notice need be taken of the numbers used in the left-hand column, as these refer only to the Hierarchies of the Colors and Sounds on the metaphysical plane, and are not the characteristic number of the human principles or of the planets. The human principles elude enumeration, because each man differs from every other, just as no two blades of grass on the whole earth are absolutely alike. Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and the natural predominance of one principle over another. With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, if he be a bestial sensualist, the Lower Manas. With one, the physical body, or perhaps Prâna (the life-principle) will be on the first and highest plane, as would be the case in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality; with another it may come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colors and metals corresponding to the planets and human principles, as will be observed, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and Western Occultists.
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:
{{Page aside|544}}
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|NUMBERS
|
|METALS
|COLORS
|SOLAR DAYS OF WEEK
|-
|1
|Saturn
|Lead
|Black
|Saturday (whence Sabbath, in honor of Jehovah)
|-
|2
|Jupiter
|Tin
|White, but as often Purple or Orange
|Thursday
|-
|3
|Mars
|Iron
|Red
|Tuesday
|-
|4
|Sun
|Gold
|Yellow-Golden
|Sunday
|-
|5
|Venus
|Copper
|Green or Yellow
|Friday
|-
|6
|Mercury
|Quicksilver
|Blue
|Wednesday
|-
|7
|Moon
|Silver
|Silver-White
|Monday
|-
|}
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:
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[[File:Hpb_cw_12_544_1.jpg|center|x200px]]
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And if the Christian chronology and order of the days of the week are being daily denounced as being based on an entirely wrong astronomical foundation, it is high time to begin a reform also in Astrology built on such lines, and coming to us entirely from the Chaldean and Assyrian exoteric mob.
But the correspondences given in our Instructions are purely esoteric. For this reason it follows that when the planets of the solar system are named or symbolized (as in Diagram II), it must not be supposed that the planetary bodies themselves are referred to, except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something. Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye it {{Page aside|545}}does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but that both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man derives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and presiding over the planet Mercury.
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 colored part of the Plate is profoundly esoteric, but the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration has been used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differing in every man.
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.
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To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set them down here after the manner of Diagram II, in relation to their domain over the human body, colors, metals, etc., and explain at the {{Page aside|548}}same time why genuine Esoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological claims.
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{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|PLANETS
|DAYS
|METALS
|PARTS OF BODY
|COLORS
|-
|<big>♄</big>Saturn
|Saturday
|Lead
|Right Ear, Knees and Bony System
|Black<ref>Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.</ref>
|-
|<big>♃</big>Jupiter
|Thursday
|Tin
|Left Ear, Thighs, Feet and Arterial System
|Purple<ref>Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the color purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic color contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the color of the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the Lower.</ref>
|-
|<big>♂</big>Mars
|Tuesday
|Iron
|Forehead and Nose, the Sex-functions and Muscular System
|Red
|-
|<big>☉</big>Sun
|Sunday
|Gold
|Right Eye, Heart and Vital Centers
|Orange<ref>Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post-Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true color of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorption of vapors (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mâyâ on our Earth.</ref>
|-
|<big>♀</big>Venus
|Friday
|Copper
|Chin and Cheeks, Neck and Reins, and the Venous System
|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>
|-
|<big>☿</big>Mercury
|Wednesday
|Quick-silver
|Mouth, Hands, Abdominal Viscera and Nervous System
|Dove or Cream<ref>Esoterically, yellow, because the color of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun, in distance, as it does in color. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest Planets. It is said to have become invisible at the close of the Third Race.</ref>
|-
|<big>☽</big>Moon
|Monday
|Silver
|Breasts, Left Eye, the Fluidic System, Saliva Lymph, etc.
|White<ref>Esoterically, violet, because perhaps violet is the color assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double––the aërial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colors from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a color, the most refrangible of all the principles and colors. Besides which there is the same great occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colors, and sounds. In clearer words there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon.</ref>
|-
|}
{{Page aside|549}}
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:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|Spring
|Summer
|Autumn
|Winter
|-
|Morning
|Noon
|Evening
|Night
|-
|Youth
|Adolescence
|Manhood
|Age
|-
|Fire
|Air
|Water
|Earth
|-
|East
|South
|West
|North
|}
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.
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<center><big>'''WHAT MAGIC IS, IN REALITY'''</big></center>
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[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.
It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term “magic” meant for initiates in those days.
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.
{{Page aside|553}}
{{Footnotes}}
| item title = EI : Instruction No. II
| item author = Blavatsky H.P.
| volume = 12
| pages = 542-580
| publications =
| scrapbook =
| previous = Zirkoff B. - EI : Instruction No. I
| next = Zirkoff B. - EI : Instruction No. III
| alternatives = [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v12/y1890_054.htm KH]
| translations =
}}
{{Page aside|542}}
<center><big>STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL</big></center>
<center><big>NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON</big></center>
<center><big>DEMAND TO THE AGENT OF THE HEAD OF THE E.S.T</big></center>
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{{Style P-Title|INSTRUCTION NO. II}}
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In view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present Instruction will begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure in the preceding one, as well as some statements in which there was an appearance of contradiction.
Astrologers, of whom there are many among the Esotericists, are likely to be puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings; whilst those who know nothing of the subject may perhaps find themselves opposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric systems of the Kabala and Astrology. For, let it be distinctly known, nothing of that which is printed broadcast, and available to every student in public libraries or museums, is really esoteric, but is either mixed with deliberate “blinds,” or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete glossary of occult terms.
The following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the student in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the preceding Instruction.
In Diagram I, it will be observed that the 3, 7, and 10 centres are respectively as follows:
(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.
Laying aside, for the moment, the Higher Decad (Kosmos) and the Lower Decad (Man), the first three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the Human Being, as well as to the Higher Supersensual World. The lower four, or the four aspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole being synthesized by the Absolute.
{{Page aside|543}}
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.
In Diagram II, as already stated therein, no notice need be taken of the numbers used in the left-hand column, as these refer only to the Hierarchies of the Colors and Sounds on the metaphysical plane, and are not the characteristic number of the human principles or of the planets. The human principles elude enumeration, because each man differs from every other, just as no two blades of grass on the whole earth are absolutely alike. Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and the natural predominance of one principle over another. With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, if he be a bestial sensualist, the Lower Manas. With one, the physical body, or perhaps Prâna (the life-principle) will be on the first and highest plane, as would be the case in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality; with another it may come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colors and metals corresponding to the planets and human principles, as will be observed, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and Western Occultists.
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:
{{Page aside|544}}
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|NUMBERS
|
|METALS
|COLORS
|SOLAR DAYS OF WEEK
|-
|1
|Saturn
|Lead
|Black
|Saturday (whence Sabbath, in honor of Jehovah)
|-
|2
|Jupiter
|Tin
|White, but as often Purple or Orange
|Thursday
|-
|3
|Mars
|Iron
|Red
|Tuesday
|-
|4
|Sun
|Gold
|Yellow-Golden
|Sunday
|-
|5
|Venus
|Copper
|Green or Yellow
|Friday
|-
|6
|Mercury
|Quicksilver
|Blue
|Wednesday
|-
|7
|Moon
|Silver
|Silver-White
|Monday
|-
|}
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:
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[[File:Hpb_cw_12_544_1.jpg|center|x200px]]
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And if the Christian chronology and order of the days of the week are being daily denounced as being based on an entirely wrong astronomical foundation, it is high time to begin a reform also in Astrology built on such lines, and coming to us entirely from the Chaldean and Assyrian exoteric mob.
But the correspondences given in our Instructions are purely esoteric. For this reason it follows that when the planets of the solar system are named or symbolized (as in Diagram II), it must not be supposed that the planetary bodies themselves are referred to, except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something. Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye it {{Page aside|545}}does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but that both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man derives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and presiding over the planet Mercury.
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 colored part of the Plate is profoundly esoteric, but the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration has been used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differing in every man.
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.
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To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set them down here after the manner of Diagram II, in relation to their domain over the human body, colors, metals, etc., and explain at the {{Page aside|548}}same time why genuine Esoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological claims.
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{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|PLANETS
|DAYS
|METALS
|PARTS OF BODY
|COLORS
|-
|<big>♄</big>Saturn
|Saturday
|Lead
|Right Ear, Knees and Bony System
|Black<ref>Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.</ref>
|-
|<big>♃</big>Jupiter
|Thursday
|Tin
|Left Ear, Thighs, Feet and Arterial System
|Purple<ref>Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the color purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic color contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the color of the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the Lower.</ref>
|-
|<big>♂</big>Mars
|Tuesday
|Iron
|Forehead and Nose, the Sex-functions and Muscular System
|Red
|-
|<big>☉</big>Sun
|Sunday
|Gold
|Right Eye, Heart and Vital Centers
|Orange<ref>Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post-Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true color of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorption of vapors (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mâyâ on our Earth.</ref>
|-
|<big>♀</big>Venus
|Friday
|Copper
|Chin and Cheeks, Neck and Reins, and the Venous System
|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>
|-
|<big>☿</big>Mercury
|Wednesday
|Quick-silver
|Mouth, Hands, Abdominal Viscera and Nervous System
|Dove or Cream<ref>Esoterically, yellow, because the color of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun, in distance, as it does in color. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest Planets. It is said to have become invisible at the close of the Third Race.</ref>
|-
|<big>☽</big>Moon
|Monday
|Silver
|Breasts, Left Eye, the Fluidic System, Saliva Lymph, etc.
|White<ref>Esoterically, violet, because perhaps violet is the color assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double––the aërial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colors from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a color, the most refrangible of all the principles and colors. Besides which there is the same great occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colors, and sounds. In clearer words there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon.</ref>
|-
|}
{{Page aside|549}}
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:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|Spring
|Summer
|Autumn
|Winter
|-
|Morning
|Noon
|Evening
|Night
|-
|Youth
|Adolescence
|Manhood
|Age
|-
|Fire
|Air
|Water
|Earth
|-
|East
|South
|West
|North
|}
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.
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<center><big>'''WHAT MAGIC IS, IN REALITY'''</big></center>
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[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.
It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term “magic” meant for initiates in those days.
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.
{{Page aside|553}}
{{Footnotes}}