HPB-SD(ed.1) v.3 ch.Paper 2: Difference between revisions
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PAPER II.
An Explanation.
In view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present Paper will begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure in the preceding one, as well as of 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 Kabalah 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 Paper.
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
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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.
If these three discrete or distributive degrees of Being be conceived, according to the Symbology of the Eastern Religions, as contained in one Ovum, or Egg, the name of that Egg will be Svabhâvat, or the All-Being on the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither centre nor periphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a definition, the natural consequence 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 Colours and Sounds on the metaphysical plane, and are not the characteristic numbers 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 colours 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 colours. And here we are reminded of the modern Orientalist, who, judging by appearances credits the ancient Akkadians (and also the Chaldæans, 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 Khargakkurra, the World-Mountain, or Meru, and relate only to the North Pole, the Land of the
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Gods. Now, the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching about the planets and their correspondences as follows:
| Numbers. | Planets. | Metals. | Colours. | Solar Days of Weeks. |
| 1. | Saturn. | Lead. | Black. | Saturday. (Whence Sabbath, in honour 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 he has been already shown in Paper I. This is the Ptolemaic geocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following diagram, showing our Earth in the centre of the Universe, and the Sun a Planet, the fourth in number:
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 Chaldæan and Assyrian exoteric mob.
But the correspondences given in these Papers are purely Esoteric.
* See supra, ii. 373; and . 152, et seq.
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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 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 Mânasa Putra, 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”; * 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, Chokmah and Binah shows this. Chokmah and Binah, or Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and Mother or, again, the Father and Son, are on the same plane and reäct 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 Ãtmâ, 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 “coloured circles,” the Divine Prism which emanates from the One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the Sephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. And these “Voices”
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are lower than the “Colours,” for they are the seven lower Sephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the Zohar 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 Sephiroth. †
In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the “Breath of Lives,” ‡ are here said to correspond with Sun and Moon, as Brahmâ-Prajâpati and Vâch, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quaternary, viz.: the two eyes and 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 inter-Mercurial planet, and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the Four Mahârâjahs, § 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 Sephiroth of the Kabalah, and our triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized, or rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown. ||
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 exoteric writings. This is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary, changing with every school. Some schools count
* Op. cit., ii. 81, 6.
† See Frank’s Die Kabbala, p. 314, et seq.
‡ Genesis, ii. 7.
§ Supra, i. 147.
|| We may refer for confirmation to 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.: and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Porphyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called.
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three, some four, some six, and others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. As said before, * the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments since the fourteenth century, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chelâs, the other for the outer circle, or lay Chelâs. 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. The 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 centres of actions, colours, 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. The principles numbered 3 and 2, viz : Linga Sharîra 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, and the Esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I. the Linga Sharîra is defined as the vehicle of Prâna, or Jîva, the life principle, and as such must of necessity be inferior to
Prâna, not superior as the exoteric enumeration would suggest. The principles do not stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence; their order depends upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differs in every man.
The Linga Sharîra 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
* Supra. i, 147.
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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.
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 dominion over the human body, colours, metals, etc., and explain at the same time why genuine Exoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological claims.
| Saturn. | Saturday. | Lead. | Right Ear, Knees and Bony System. | Black. * |
| Jupiter. | Thursday. | Tin. | Left Ear, Thighs, Feet and Arterial System. | Purple. † |
| Mars | Tuesday. | Iron. | Forehead and Nose, the Skull, Sex-function and Muscular System. | Red. |
| Sun. | Sunday. | Gold. | Right Eye, Heart and Vital Center. | Orange. ‡ |
| Venus. | Friday. | Copper. | Chin and Cheeks, Neck and Reins and the Venous System. | Yellow. § |
| Mercury. | Wednesday. | Quicksilver. | Mouth, Hands, Abdouninal Viscera and Nervous System. | Dove or Cream. || |
| Moon. | Monday. | Silver. | Breasts, Left Eye, the Fluidic System, Saliva, Lymph, etc. | White. ¶ |
* Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.
† 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 colour 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 colour contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour 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.
‡ 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 colour of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorbtion of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mayâ on our earth.
§ Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas being dual in its nature—as is its sidereal symbol, the planet
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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 colour from black to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as colours, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural colours 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 colours, and therefore no colour; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative aspect of white. The seven prismatic colours 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 colour is called in Occultism the “Father of Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its Father-Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every colour with a definite sound, a fact well recognized in Modern Science (e.g., Francis Galton’s Human Faculty). But black and white are
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 colour of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi, or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the indigofera 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 copper lustre, 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 upon a logical and demonstrable reasons. Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with pure green.
|| Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in colour. 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.
¶ Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour 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 aerial 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 colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colours 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.
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entirely negative colours, 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 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) colour; (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 colour 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 colour which is invisible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces colour, 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
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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 practised in Europe, is the semi-esoteric Secret Science, adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle. It is, furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to conceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adapts its correspondences on the mere appearances of things, 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 the Mediæval 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 Shiva; 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:
| 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 absolutely necessary to preface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of the real meaning of the word Magic.
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WHAT MAGIC IS, IN REALITY.
Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and in Divine Magic, * 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 be useful to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of this most misunderstood world “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 translation; 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 Gnosis, both pre-Christian and post-Christian, will serve our purpose admirably.
There are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus, and the little that is told about him in the Acts; 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 Irenæus, Ephiphanius and St. Justin, and especially in the anonymous Philosophumena. Yet he is a 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 his 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 Æons. He mentions only three
* 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 maz, Greek megas, and Latin magnus, all signifying “great”.
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degrees as such, because it was and is useless, as we have before explained, 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 Meander’s claims about “Magic,” to find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all manifested creation was Fire. It was, 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 the Fire is concealed in its evident [or objective] side, and the objective is produced from the secret side, *
he writes, 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 Intelligibe (Noêton) and the Sensible (Aisthêton), and Aristotle’s teaching on the Potency (Dunamis) and the Act (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, was susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial emanations are our Dhyân Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher Æons. 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,” 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 sacred side of it being the Father. Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair, or couple), for they emanated two-by-two, one as an active, and the other as a passive Æon. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: “Mind and Thought; Voice and Name; Reason and Reflection,” † the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six Æons of the Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says:
* Philosophumena, vi. 9.
† Nous, Epinoia: Phôni : Onoma : Logismos, Enthumesis.
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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, but would get lost. *
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 Æons had to imitate it in its action, and become 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 Kryiâshakti, † 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 Æons 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 Æons, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into Act, and emanated, in their turn, six secondary Æons, which were each synthesized by their respective Parents. In the Philosophumena we read that Simon compared the Æons to the “Tree of Life.” Said Simon in the Revelation: ‡
It is written that there are two ramifications of the universal Æons, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same Root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sigê [Silence]. One of these [series of Æons] 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 Æon, generating all things. These [two kinds of Æons] corresponding § with each other, have conjunction and manifest the middle distance [the intermediate sphere or plane], the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end. ||
This female “Air” is our Ether, or the kabalistic Astral Light. It
* Philosophumena, vi. 12.
† See supra, sub voce.
‡ The Great Revelation (Hê Megalê Apophasis), of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author.
§ Literally, standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.
|| Philosophumena, vi. 18.
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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 or 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. It is the Thought (Sigê) that emanated from it which became as itself (the Parent), having become like unto its image (or antetype): the second had now become in its turn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As Simon has it:
It [the Parent or Father] was one. For having it [the thought] in itself, it was alone. It was not, however, first, though it was preëxisting: but manifesting itself to itself from itself, it became the second (or dual). Nor was it called Father before it [the Thought] gave it that name. As, therefore, itself developing itself by itself manifested to itself its own Thought, so also the Thought being manifested did not act, but seeing the Father hid it in itself, that is, (hid) that Potency (in itself), And the Potency [Dunamis, viz.: Nous] and Thought [Epinoia] are male-female. Whence they correspond with one another—For Potency in no way differs from Thought— being one. So from the things above is found Potency, and from those below, Thought. It comes to pass, therefore, that that which is manifested from them, although being one, yet is found to be twofold, the androgyne having the female in itself. So is Mind in Thought, things inseparable from each other which though being one are yet found dual. *
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 the Earth. †
Simon’s Third World with its third series of six Æons and the seventh, the Parent, is emanated in the same way. It is this same note which runs through every Gnostic system—gradual development downward into Matter by similitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial Occultism, or Magic. With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency, synthesizing all, is the Spirt brooding over the dark waters of undifferentiated Space, Nârâyana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in Christianity. But while in the latter the conception is conditioned and dwarfed by limitations necessitating
* Op. cit., vi. 18.
† Op. cit., i. 13.
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faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenæus supplements the information on the further development of these six Æons. We learn from him that Thought, having separated from its Parent, and knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to know, proceeded on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each of such Worlds consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming androgyne), to create inferior Hierarchies, Angels and Powers, Dominions and Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather emanated out of their own Essence, our world with its men and beings, over which they watch.
It thus follows that every rational being—called Man on Earth—is of the same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher Æons, the primordial Seven. It is for him to develope, “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. 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 Æons 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 (Æon), 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. *
Thus of this triple Æon, we learn the first exists as “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” or the uncreate Power, Âtman; the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated Substance, our Buddhi), from or through the image of the former reflected in those waters, the image of Him, or It, which moves on them; the third World (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that eternal and omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For,
* Op. cit., vi. 17.
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All that is eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in everything that is
if only potentially, not actually. And
Everything is that image, provided the lower image (man) ascends to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought.
Matter as Substance is eternal and has never been created. Therefore Simon Magus, with all the great Gnostic Teachers and Eastern Philosophers, never speaks of its beginning. “Eternal Matter” receives its various forms in the lower Æon from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why, then, should not Man, the direct heir of the highest Æon, do the same, by the potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is Kriyâshakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, from invisible, indestructible Matter.
Truly says Jeremiah, * 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 Æon, or Divine Man, both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as Occult as that which is given in Paper I. For the terrestrial Paradise is the Womb, says Simon, † 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 Fœtus, 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. ‡
* Op. cit., i. 5.
† Philosophumena, vi. 14.
‡ 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 Fœtus, and two Hypogastic or Umbilical Arteries which take the used-up blood from the Fœtus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus Science corroborates 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 Paper was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, which were printed in 1884 and 1888 and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the fœtal nutrition as advanced in Paper I. Briefly, the Fœtus 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 one cares to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson’s Remarks on the Nutrition of the Fœtus. (Wood & Co., New York)
| 471 | 471 |
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, Menader, was also a great Magician. Says Irenæus, among other writers:
The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.
Thus both master and pupil are shown as having 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 God. But the question is, have these so-called “miracles” of the “Christ” and the 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 incarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in Philosophumena, or the third Æons, 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 Æons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through
| 472 | 472 |
the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of a 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 æons before refusing to create. * Finally, after detaining 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 (Ãtmâ-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For Ãtman 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 and his Epinoia Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Shakti of the inner man, the female potency.
Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of Ennoia, (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
* Supra, vol. ii.
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baptism from him (i.e., after Initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no older,” became “immortal.” * This “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 Yogîs—Magic.
Every person who had read Neo-Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Jamblichus, the author of the De Mysteriis, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Divine 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 it limited to, the body of 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. †
Jamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad demons who deceive men (the spooks of the sêance 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 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
* See Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. cap. 26.
† De Mysteriis, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1.
| 474 | 474 |
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. *
Now, Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia, which Samâdhi, the highest trance. † 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) Ecstacy 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 Colours and Sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which to the untrained intellect, to the Chelâ, 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 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.
Having read the foregoing, students will now better comprehend the necessity of first studying the correspondences between our “principles”—which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual and physical) man—and our Paradigm; the direct roots of these in the Universe.
* De Mysteriis, p. 290, lines 15 to 18, et seq., caps. v. and vii.
† Ibid., p. 100, sec. iii, cap. iii.
| 475 | 475 |
In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies directly connected and for ever linked with man.
Enough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane masses the sentence, “Om Mani Padma Hum,” means simply “Oh the Jewel of the Lotus,” Esoterically it signifies “Oh my God within me.” Yes; there is a God in each human being, for man was, and will re-become, God. The sentence points to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe. For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the absolute totality, and the Jewel is Spiritual Man or God.
In the preceding Paper, the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and “Principles” were given; and those who have read our second volume will remember that these seven principles are derived from the seven great Hierarchies of Angels, or Dhyân Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colours and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested Logos.
In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colours, and in the number, determined by the vibrations of colour and sound, which “underlies every form and guides every sound,” we find the summing-up of the Manifested Universe.
We may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour and sound to the geometrical figures which * express the progressive stages in the manifestation of Kosmos.
But the student will certainly be liable to confusion if, in studying the Diagrams, he does not remember two things: (1) That, our plane being a plane of reflection, and therefore illusionary, the various notations are reversed and must be counted from below upwards. The musical scale begins from below upwards, commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si. (2) That Kâma Rûpa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale), containing as it does all potentialities of Matter, is necessarily the starting-point on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on every plane, as corresponding to the “matter” of that plane. Again, the student must also remember that these notes have to be arranged in a circle, thus showing how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short, musical notes, or Sounds, Colours
* See supra, i. 34; i. 4, et seq., ii. 39 et seq., and 625, et seq.
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and Numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colours, in which Red is counted first; a fact which necessitated my putting the principles and the days of the week at random in Diagram II. The musical scale and colours, according to the number of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross Matter to that of Spirit thus:
| Chhâyâ, Shadow or Double. | Violet. | Si. | Ether. | |
| Highter Manas, Spiritual Intelligence. | Indigo. | La. | Critical State, called Air in Occultism. | |
| Auric Envelope. | Blue. | Sol. | Steam or Vapour. | |
| Lower Manas, or Animal Soul. | Green. | Fa. | Critical State. | |
| Buddhi, or Spiritual Soul. | Yellow. | Mi. | Water. | |
| Prâna, or Life Principle. | Orange. | Re. | Critical State. | |
| Kâma Rûpa, the Seat of Animal Life. | Red. | Do. | Ice. |
Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondences between “principles” and numbers, for reasons already given. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the conventional exoteric. The one is the reality, the other is classified according to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in Esoteric Buddhism, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse their minds. It was half a blind.
| 477 | 477 |
COLOURS, SOUNDS AND FORMS.
To proceed:
The point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and absolute Sound.
The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresonds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus he Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father-Mother,” or the White Ray which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Un-spoken Word. Around the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this order (reversed as to our plane):
(a) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.
(b) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.
(c) The synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing all and radiating all.
(d) Animal of Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable intelligence and instinct.
* The Master-Key or Tonic of Manifested Nature.
| 478 | 478 |
(e) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligence, Fohat.
(f) Life Principle in Nature.
(g) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the spiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.
Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed, and becomes on Earth and our plane:
(a) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it is shown in its lowest animal form.
(b) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.
(c) Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray in every atom; in man of Buddhi.
(d) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green absorbs the Red, as being stronger in its vibrations than the latter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.
(e) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.
(f) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.
(g) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole, standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red.
The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned.
In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and therefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for it is ascertained that there exist slow vibrations than those of the Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the
| 479 | 479 |
sensation of colour and sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and inferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper Triangle.
Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as demonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles
they are; (1) Kâma Rûpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a vehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being interchangeable); (2) Auric envelope, or the essence of man; and (3) Prâna, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living man as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi-illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves, or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find which are those in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours correspond and become complementary in the following way:
| (1) Red | Green. | |
| (2) Orange | Blue. | |
| (3) Yellow | Indigo. | |
A faint violet, mist-like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most activPae generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and it is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, if he be acquainted with correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person, for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.
In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, viz., Yellow, Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of illusion.
| 480 | 480 |
A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogî in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous influence. In the Yogî, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red-Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in a point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red, [and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from Orange-Red to Yellow-Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why: he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas. On the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red-violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa (the green and red animal monsters in us).
One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right
| Colours. | Wave-Lengths in Millimetres. |
Number of Vibrations in Trillions. |
Violet extreme – |
406 | 759 |
Violet – |
423 | 709 |
Violet-Indigo – |
434 | 683 |
Indigo – |
449 | 668 |
Indigo-Blue – |
459 | 654 |
Blue – |
479 | 631 |
Blue-Green – |
492 | 610 |
Green – |
512 | 586 |
Green-Yellow – |
532 | 564 |
Yellow – |
551 | 544 |
Yellow-Orange – |
571 | 525 |
Orange – |
583 | 514 |
Orange-Red – |
590 | 503 |
Red – |
620 | 484 |
Red-extreme – |
645 | 465 |
| 481 | 481 |
correspondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as swimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding board of a violin, producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the Seven-Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has shrouded ancient knowledge, men’s faculties are no better than the loose strings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “Om Mani Padme Hum.”
This was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the School of Pythagoras.
THE ROOTS OF COLOUR AND SOUND.
Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colours. But in this case one colour, viz., that which characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.
These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colours; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colours in their negative order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour. This colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the
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animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man. * Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.
The symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven Hierarchies of creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles, each circle being coloured with one of the seven colours; call them Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all events, the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel’s Wheels with some Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajâpati with us.
DIAGRAM III.
The student should carefully examine the following Diagram.
Thus the Linga Sharîra is derived from the Violet sub-ray of the Violet Hierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub-ray of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet’s colour in him, because that “principle” will rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour derived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom say, the Mercury principle is predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another person born under a different planet, be able to get him entirely under his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the Key to the Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.
The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which would be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter have no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these Hierarchies cannot now be given.
* See Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 273 to 278.
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The student must, however, remember that the colours which we see with our physical eyes are not the true colours of Occult Nature, but are merely the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain rates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that the retinal effects of any colour may be initiated by properly combining three other colours. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three distinct colour sensations and we therefore do not perceive the seven colours which really exist, but only their “imitations” so to speak, in our physical organism. Thus, for instance, the Orange-Red of the first “Triangle” is not a combination of Orange and Red, but the true “spiritual” Red, if the term may be allowed, while, the Red (blood-red) of the spectrum is the colour of Kâma animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane. |
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THE UNITY OF DEITY.
Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we considered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the
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Absolute Deity; and if It Itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire Philosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source of all that breathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion the ONE was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chaldæ and Phœnicia, and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples of three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods, which symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity.
This was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to which the metaphysics of these nations subjected their One Divinity. Thus constituted, the cycle of the Gods has all the qualities and attributes of the One Supreme and Unknowable; for in this collection of divine Personalities, or rather of Symbols personified, dwells the One God, the God One, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.
O God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration of thy divine personages. *
These words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation proceeds from one and the same Source, all emanating from the one identical Principle which can never be completely developed except in and through the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.
The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the One differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic Æons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Siddhas of the Purânas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Alêtheia, the Truth of the Mysteries. All of them, we are taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:
The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.
And addressing Ra, they add:
* Apud Grebaat Papyrus Orbiney, p. 101.
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The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that which produces them . . . and say to thee, Peace to all emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the Gods. . . . Thou producer of beings, we adore the souls which emanate from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in us.
This is the source of the assertion:
Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.
This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” in Lucifer for March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Alêtheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Alêtheia of Occult Science.