HPB-SD(21c)

The Secret Doctrine

The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

by

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

सत्यात् नास्ति परो धर्मः । “ There is no Religion higher than Truth.”

21-th century edition (based on first edition, 1888)

Table of contents

ix

ix

Preface

... vii

Introduction

... xvii

The Need of such a Book

... xix

The Antiquity of Documents and MSS.

... xxiii

What the Book is intended to do

... xxviii

VOLUME FIRST.
COSMOGENESIS.

Proem

... 1

The Oldest MSS. in the world and its Symbolism

... 2

The One Life, Active and Passive

... 4

The Secret Doctrine — Pantheism — Atheism

... 6

“ Space ” in all Religions and in Occultism

... 9

Seven Cosmic Elements — Seven Races of Mankind

... 12

The Three Postulates of the Secret Doctrine

... 14

Description of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan

... 20

BOOK I.—PART I.
COSMIC EVOLUTION.

Seven stanzas from the Book of Dzyan

... 27

–––––––

Stanza I. The night of the universe

... 35

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Sloka 1

... 35

The seven eternities

... 36

Sloka 2

... 36

Time and Universal Mind

... 37

Sloka 3

... 37

The Universal Mind and the dhyan chohans

... 38

Sloka 4

... 38

The causes of being

... 39

Nidana and maya: the causes of misery

... 39

Sloka 5

... 40

What is darkness in philosophy?

... 41

Sloka 6

... 42

Motions, the “Great Breath”

... 43

Sloka 7

... 44

Being and non-being

... 45

Sloka 8

... 46

The eye of Dangma

... 47

Sloka 9

... 47

Alaya, the universal soul

... 49

Can the finite conceive the infinite?

... 51

x

contents.

x

Stanza II. The idea of differentiation

... 53

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Sloka 1

... 53

The state of paranirvana

... 53

Sloka 2

... 54

The Absolute knows itself not

... 55

Sloka 3

... 57

The germ of life was not yet

... 57

Sloka 4

... 58

Astral light is not the Anima Mundi

... 59

Sloka 5

... 60

Divine thought, divine thinkers

... 61

Sloka 6

... 61

The universe was still concealed in the divine thought

... 61

–––––––

Stanza III. The awakening of kosmos

... 62

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Sloka 1

... 62

The universe, a flitting shadow

... 63

Sloka 2

... 63

The great vibration

... 63

Sloka 3

... 64

Nature’s symbols

... 65

Sloka 4

... 66

The power of numbers

... 67

Sloka 5

... 68

The blossom of the root of life.

... 69

Sloka 6

... 69

Sloka 7

... 71

Light emerges from darkness

... 71

The logoi and the dragon

... 73

Noumenal and phenomenal light

... 75

The astral light

... 75

Sloka 8

... 77

Deity in space and time

... 77

Primeval radiations from unity

... 79

Sloka 9

... 81

Primeval differentiations

... 81

Sloka 10

... 83

The web of being

... 83

Sloka 11

... 83

Sloka 12

... 85

Conscious electricity: Fohat

... 85

–––––––

Stanza IV. The septenary hierarchies

... 86

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Sloka 1

... 86

The sons of the fire

... 86

The seven mystic senses

... 87

Sloka 2

... 88

Sloka 3

... 88

The vehicle of the universe — the dhyan chohans

... 89

The immaculate conceptions

... 91

Sloka 4

... 88

The potency of speech and sound

... 93

The army of the Voice

... 93

Speech and Mind

... 95

Nature, the Perpetual Motion

... 97

Sloka 5

... 98

The Ogdoad and the Heptad

... 99

Fire, the great symbol of deity

... 101

The stellar “Sons of Light”

... 103

Sloka 6

... 103

The divine recorders

... 105

–––––––

Stanza V. Fohat : The child of the septenary hierarchies

... 106

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Sloka 1

... 106

The fiery whirlwind and the primordial seven

... 107

No man — no god.

Sloka 2

... 107

They produce Fohat

... 108

Theogony of the creators

... 109

The protean spirit-substance

... 111

The correlation of the “gods”

... 113

Manifested symbols

... 115

Sloka 3

... 116

The antiquity of physical sciences

... 117

Sloka 4

... 118

Evolution of the “principles” of nature

... 119

The mystery of the fire

... 121

Sloka 5

... 122

The secret of the elements

... 123

The square of the tabernacle (the real meaning of the tabernacle)

... 125

The dragons of secret wisdom

... 127

Sloka 5

... 129

The planetary spirits and the lipika

... 129

The ring “Pass Not”

... 130

The sidereal book of life

... 131

The god of man and the god of the ant

... 133

The soul’s pilgrimage and its “rest”

... 134

The soul’s pilgrimage

... 135

–––––––

Stanza VI. Our world, its growth and development

... 136

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Sloka 1

... 136

The logos

... 136

Mystery of the female logos

... 137

xi

contents.

xi

Sloka 2

... 138

The seven layu centres

... 138

From no-number to number seven

... 139

The “elementary germs”

... 139

Sloka 3

... 140

The evolution of the elements

... 140

Were the ancients ignorant of the physical sciences?

... 141

The sleep of the Eternal Mother

... 143

Sloka 4

... 144

The cosmic plane, an illusion

... 145

The building of the worlds

... 145

Primordial substance, a reality

... 147

A neutral centre

... 147

The moon is not dead, but only sleepeth

... 149

“Dead” planets — the Moon

... 149

Nature can never cease

... 151

––––––– A few early theosophical misconceptions concerning planets, rounds, and man

... 152

Descending and re-ascending states

... 153

Diagram I. The planetary divisions and the human principles

... 153

Exchange of life-principles

... 155

The Moon

... 155

Opinions differ and yet agree

... 157

Septenary division in different Indian systems

... 157

Transmigrations of the ego

... 159

A re-adjustment of facts

... 161

The septenary chain

... 161

Like questions, like answers

... 163

Relation of the other planets to the Earth

... 163

An authoritative letter

... 165

Priceless advice, neglected

... 167

The seven branches of the tree of knowledge

... 169

––––––– Additional facts and explanations concerning the globes and the monads

... 170

The mystery of the moon, unveiled

... 171

Diagram II. The Lunar chain and the Earth chain

... 172

The Earth, the child of the Moon

... 173

The classification of the monads

... 175

As above, so below, is the law

... 177

The Lunar Monads – the Pitris

... 179

A triple evolution in nature

... 181

Man, the oldest son of the earth

... 183

The man, or the ape; which the first?

... 185

An erroneous opinion

... 187

A Master’s letter

... 189

–––––––

Stanza VI. – Continued

... 191

Sloka 5

... 191

The preliminary creation of man

... 191

“Creation” in the Fourth Round

... 191

Sloka 6

... 192

The first cause of sin

... 193

The “curse,” “sin,” and “war”

... 193

The codex repeats the allegory

... 195

Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah

... 197

Sloka 6 – Continued

... 199

[The comparative diagram of seven planes]

... 200

No shadow, no light

... 201

The struggle for life and the birth of the worlds

... 202

The birth of the worlds

... 203

Seeing sound, hearing colours

... 205

Sloka 7

... 205

the tree from which the adepts grow

... 207

The adepts and the Sacred Island

... 207

The sacred island

... 209

The sons of wisdom

... 211

–––––––

Stanza VII. The parents of man on Earth

... 213

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Sloka 1

... 213

Divisions of the hierarchies

... 214

One parent flame, countless flames

... 215

Teachings contrasted

... 217

The hierarchies of spirits

... 219

Correlation of beings

... 221

Sloka 2

... 222

The mystery of being

... 223

Spirit falling into matter

... 225

The Egyptian system

... 227

Many streams, but one source

... 229

Sloka 3

... 231

The differentiation of the “One”

... 231

What incarnates in animal man

... 233

Dii sunt demones inversi

... 235

Sloka 4

... 237

The immortal root

... 237

Sloka 5

... 238

Formation of man: the thinker

... 238

Chaldean metaphysics

... 239

The true and the false Kabala

... 241

[Diagram of human principles]

... 242

Occult and Kabalistic pneumatics (doctrines)

... 243

Occultists and Kabalists differ

... 245

Spirit alone is helpless on earth

... 247

Matter, life and substance

... 249

The four dimensions of space

... 251

The great Archæus

... 253

But why slander the Indian hierophants?

... 255

Akâsa in not ether

... 257

Atoms are invisible lives

... 259

Occult vital chemistry and bacteriology

... 261

Paracelsus died too early

... 263

xii

contents.

xii

Sloka 6

... 264

Man, the shadow of his prototype

... 265

The Watcher and his shadow

... 265

Sloka 7

... 265

Earth, peopled from heaven (by the shadows of the gods)

... 267

–––––––

Summing up

... 269

The first chapter of creation

... 269

Occultism in the Upanishads

... 271

The pith and marrow of the Secret Doctrine

... 273

The nature of the celestial men

... 275

Many bodies but one soul

... 277

Hermes, or Aristotle?

... 279

Matter is the shadow of spirit

... 281

Paracelsus anticipated Tyndall

... 283

Hermes in Christian garb (christianized)

... 285

Alone the eternal is rest

... 287

Some Occult aphorisms

... 289

Occult aphorisms

... 291

The seven powers of nature

... 293

Universal illusion

... 295

Nothing new under the sun

... 297

Men welcome error, and crucify the truth

... 299

BOOK I.—PART II.
THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.

I. Symbolism and ideographs

... 303

Emblem and symbol differ

... 305

Magic potency of sound

... 307

Mystery language

... 309

–––––––

II. The mystery language and its keys

... 310

Egypt’s many religions

... 311

The Jews and their system

... 313

Piazzi Smyth and Petrie disagree

... 315

Truth must prevail at last

... 317

Moses copied from Sargon

... 319

The cross, a phallic symbol

... 321

Identity of the ancient symbols

... 323

The impartiality of scientific denials

... 325

–––––––

III. Primordial substance and divine thought

... 325

Divine thought, or cineritious matter?

... 327

The universal illusion

... 329

Ether and intelligence

... 330

Ether, as its noumenon

... 331

What Manu says of this

... 333

The seven prakritis

... 335

Darkness, is light

... 337

The mystic fire

... 339

One tree of knowledge

... 341

–––––––

IV. Chaos—Theos—Kosmos

... 342

The union of chaos and spirit

... 343

The birth of mind

... 345

The mystic elements

... 347

–––––––

V. The hidden deity, its symbols and glyphs

... 349

The many are one

... 349

The Gnostic idea

... 351

The Egyptian version

... 353

International correlation of gods

... 355

Ornithological symbols

... 357

xiii

contents.

xiii

VI. The mundane egg

... 359

Whence our figures?

... 361

Egg-born logoi

... 363

The winged globe

... 365

The Scandinavian logos

... 367

–––––––

VII. The days and nights of Brahmâ

... 368

Human gods and divine men

... 369

The rebirth of gods

... 371

The dissolution of the egg

... 373

Archaic symbolism

... 375

The Purânic prophecy

... 377

–––––––

VIII. The lotus as a universal symbol

... 379

Lotus and lily

... 379

The exoteric and the esoteric

... 381

The purity of early Phallicism

... 383

The Egyptian lotus

... 385

–––––––

IX. The Moon, Deus Lunus, Phœbe

... 386

A glance at the lunar myth

... 387

A key-note to the Moon

... 389

The time periods

... 391

Copies and originals

... 393

Solar-lunar worship in the church

... 395

The Moon, bisexual

... 397

The dignity of Saïs

... 399

Ante-historical Catholicism

... 401

Identity of typology

... 403

–––––––

X. Tree and serpent and crocodile worship

... 403

Degeneration of the symbol

... 405

The seven-headed dragons

... 407

Dragon and crocodile

... 409

The mystery of the seven thunders

... 411

–––––––

XI. Demon est Deus inversus

... 411

Death is life

... 413

Theological etymologies

... 415

The angels slandered

... 417

The fall of the angels

... 418

The war of the gods

... 419

The deception of the gods

... 421

Transformation of the legend

... 421

The deception, an allegory

... 423

–––––––

XII. The theogony of the creative gods

... 424

Myth is oral tradition

... 425

The point within the circle

... 426

The creative logoï, androgynous

... 427

The one is known by the many

... 429

The Logos or Verbum

... 429

The female logoï

... 431

The factors of Creation

... 432

The Pythagorean idea

... 433

Antiquity of the pyramids

... 435

Cosmic gods

... 437

Identity of the hierarchies in all religions

... 438

Incredible, but true

... 439

The same idea in Confucianism

... 441

The mystery of blackness

... 443

Difference between the Aryan and Semitic systems

... 444

God is our higher self

... 445

xiv

contents.

xiv

XIII. The seven creations

... 445

The order of the evolution

... 447

The six stellar gods

... 449

The Gnostic and the Hindu versions

... 449

The seven Puranic “Creations”

... 450

Many versions of the one truth

... 451

The seven creations

... 453

Creations continued

... 455

Who the kumâras are

... 457

The patron-guide of Israel

... 459

–––––––

XIV. The four elements

... 460

On the elements

... 461

The cosmic gods

... 463

The “gods” and the “elements”

... 463

The language of the elements

... 464

A confession of science

... 465

The fighting gods

... 467

Pagan and Christian worship of the elements

... 467

Prayer is often sorcery

... 469

–––––––

XV. On Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin

... 470

Diseased imagination

... 471

Kwan-Shi-Yin and Phallicism

... 471

The real meaning

... 472

Snobs, or dragons?

... 473

––––––––––––––

BOOK I.—PART III.
SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.

I. Reasons for these addenda

... 477

Mutual position defined

... 477

Dual nature of the sun

... 479

Occultism versus Materialism

... 479

The sons of light

... 481

The sabbath of the Mystic

... 481

–––––––

II. Modern physicists are playing at blind man’s buff

... 482

No agreement among scientist

... 483

–––––––

III. An lumen sit corpus nec non ?

... 483

The metaphysics of physical science

... 485

The hypothetical ether

... 485

Scientific imagination

... 487

The physical “phantom”

... 489

Scientific theories of its constitution

... 489

–––––––

IV. Is gravitation a law ?

... 490

Gravity or what?

... 491

The triple sidereal force

... 493

Intelligences or blind forces?

... 493

Newton then and Newton now

... 495

New bottles for old wine

... 497

The cause of attraction

... 498

Chronic negation

... 499

xv

contents.

xv

V. The theories of rotation in science

... 500

Contradictory hypotheses

... 501

Conflicting hypotheses

... 502

Scientific aberrations

... 503

The paradoxes of science

... 505

More hypotheses

... 505

–––––––

VI. The masks of science

... 506

Academical misnomers

... 507

What are the “forces?”

... 508

The fixing of light

... 509

The view of the Occultists

... 510

What is force?

... 511

They agree to disagree

... 513

The mystic rays

... 515

Scientific and occult theories on heat

... 515

The causes and the effects

... 517

The vicious circle

... 519

The atoms of science

... 519

Chemical gods

... 521

Suggestive allegories

... 523

–––––––

VII. An attack on the scientific theory of force by a man of science

... 523

Dr. Richardson’s heresy

... 525

We disagree

... 527

Ether and atoms

... 527

–––––––

VIII. Life, force, or gravity?

... 529

Mysterious sun fluid

... 529

Sun-force and Earth-force

... 531

Dr. Richardson on nervous ether

... 531

Pantheism or monotheism

... 533

The seven physical senses

... 535

The senses and their action

... 535

What is nervous ether?

... 537

The life-principle

... 539

Too much “life” may kill

... 539

–––––––

IX. The solar theory

... 540

The heart of the solar system

... 541

The primordial element

... 542

The quintessence of kosmos

... 543

The original base

... 545

Elements and meta-elements

... 546

Occult chemistry

... 547

Monads and atoms

... 549

The tree of life and being

... 549

The caduceus of life

... 551

Prof. Crookes on the elements

... 552

True signs of the times

... 553

–––––––

X. The coming force

... 554

Divine, infernal, or terrestrial force?

... 555

Mr. Keeley, an unconscious Occultist

... 557

The first-born of ether

... 559

Inter-etheric waves

... 561

A premature discovery

... 563

The secrets of sound and odour

... 565

–––––––

XI. On the elements and atoms

... 566

Metaphysical chemistry

... 567

Pantheism versus materialism

... 569

The diamond heart

... 571

The crest-jewel of wisdom

... 573

What are the seven planets?

... 575

The cyclic fall of the gods

... 577

xvi

contents.

xvi

XII. Ancient thought in modern dress

... 579

Antiquity our great master

... 579

A chase after the primal matter

... 581

All-potential unity

... 583

The “seventh” in Chemistry

... 585

Puranas versus Royal Society

... 587

–––––––

XIII. The modern nebular theory

... 588

“So far shalt thou go...”

... 589

Forces are emanations

... 591

Unanswerable queries

... 593

What is the nebula?

... 595

The meta-elements of physical science

... 597

The nebular theory a romance

... 599

–––––––

XIV. Forces—Modes of motion or intelligences?

... 601

Hermes and Kant

... 601

The vital principle

... 603

Occult and physical science

... 605

Plurality of worlds

... 607

The geology of Enoch

... 609

–––––––

XV. Gods, monads, and atoms

... 610

Which of the two is blind?

... 611

The mathematical point

... 613

The gods of the ancients — the monads

... 613

Space, force and matter

... 615

Phantoms of the mind

... 617

The monad and the duad

... 617

The monad of Leibnitz

... 619

The chemistry of the future

... 621

The genesis of the elements

... 621

The genesis of atoms

... 623

Hermes or Huxley?

... 625

Leibnitz and Occultism

... 627

The teaching of Leibnitz

... 627

Spinoza and Leibnitz

... 629

Maya and mahamaya

... 631

The monads according to Occultism

... 632

The wheels of life

... 633

–––––––

XVI. Cyclic evolution and karma

... 634

The roots and causes

... 635

The swing of karma

... 637

Karmic cycles and universal ethics

... 637

The network of destiny

... 639

Destiny and karma

... 639

Cyclic wheels within wheels

... 641

Karma-Nemesis

... 643

Ancient and modern prophecies

... 645

Astrology a science

... 647

–––––––

XVII. The Zodiac and its antiquity

... 647

The Zodiac in the Bible

... 649

The Jewish patriarchs and the signs of the Zodiac

... 651

The sign of Jonas

... 653

Chaldeo-Judean gods

... 655

Zodiacal cycles

... 656

The dragon and the bull

... 657

Bailly’s conclusions

... 659

The beginning of kali-yug

... 661

Hindu astronomy

... 661

The eye of Taurus

... 663

Hindu astronomical methods

... 665

The Aryan Hindus vindicated

... 667

–––––––

XVIII. Summary of the mutual position

... 668

The exact sciences of — negation

... 669

Science confesses her ignorance

... 669

No void possible

... 671

The aliases of Fohat

... 673

The gods of Egypt

... 675

Materialism is leading Europe towards a catastrophe

... 675

–––––––

N.B. — The Index and Glossary will be found at the close of Volume II.

VOLUME SECOND.

vii

vii

Preliminary notes

... 1

On the archaic stanzas, and the four prehistoric continents

... 1

The lemnos-born kabiri

... 3

The secrets of Kouyunjik

... 5

The imperishable sacred land

... 6

Hyperboreas and Lemuria

... 7

Atlantis

... 8

Pre-tertiary giants

... 9

The tropics at the pole

... 11

–––––––

BOOK II.— PART II.
ANTHROPOGENESIS.

Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan

... 15

–––––––

Stanza I.—Beginnings of sentient life

... 22

Slokas: 1, 2, 3, 4

Sloka 1. The Lha, or Spirit of the Earth

... 22

The action of the Great Breath

... 23

Man, the Third Logos

... 25

Man’s dual and triple nature

... 27

Sloka 2. Invocation of the Earth to the Sun

... 27

The celestial governors of humanity

... 29

The horses of Sukra’s car

... 31

Parent stars and sister planets

... 33

The “seven” mystery

... 35

Three kinds of light

... 37

The numbers of Creation

... 39

The emanations of Ain-Soph

... 41

Adam-Adami

... 43

Sloka 3. What the Sun answers

... 44

The first war in heaven

... 45

Sloka 4. Transformation of the Earth

... 46

Narada and Asuramaya

... 47

–––––––

Two antediluvian astronomers

... 47

The mirror of futurity

... 49

What the earth-whirl produced

... 51

–––––––

Stanza II.—Nature unaided fails

... 52

Slokas: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Sloka 5. After enormous periods the Earth creates monsters

... 52

The monsters of Chaos

... 53

Sloka 6. The “Creators” are displeased

... 55

Unaided physical nature fails

... 55

Sloka 7. They dry the Earth

... 57

The “Double Dragon”

... 57

Creation of divine beings in the exoteric accounts

... 58

The bodies of Brahma

... 59

What the Gnostics say

... 61

Sloka 8. The forms are destroyed by them

... 63

Who are the “Flames”?

... 63

Sloka 9. The first great tides

... 64

Sloka 10. The beginning of incrustation

... 65

Divine will becomes Eros

... 65

viii

contents.

viii

The chronology of the brahmins

... 66

The Race that never dies

... 67

The various pralayas

... 69

Scientific self-complacence

... 71

Cosmogony, an intelligent plan

... 73

–––––––

Stanza III.—Attempts to create man

... 75

Slokas: 11, 12, 13

Sloka 11. The Descent of the Demiurge

... 75

The secret of the fall of the angels

... 75

The various classes of creators

... 77

Man, a god in animal form

... 81

“Fires,” “sparks,” and “flames”

... 83

–––––––

Stanza IV.—Creation of the first races

... 86

Pitris of the gods and demons

... 89

What Prometheus symbolized

... 95

The hammer of Thor

... 99

The divine rebels

... 103

Man’s father, the Sun

... 105

–––––––

Stanza V. The evolution of the Second Race

... 109

The secret work of Chiram

... 113

The outgrowth of races

... 117

Leda, Castor, and Pollux

... 121

Jah-Hovah androgynous

... 125

The Jewish God-name

... 127

–––––––

Stanza VI. The evolution of the sweat-born

... 131

Bi-sexual reproduction

... 133

The virgin Third Race

... 135

A few words about deluges and Noah’s

... 138

Various deluges

... 141

The arkite symbols

... 143

Could men exist 18,000,000 years ago ?

... 148

Spontaneous generation

... 151

The Solar system in the Purânas

... 155

Oceans of carbonic acid?

... 159

–––––––

Stanza VII. From the semi-divine down to the first human races

... 161

Monads and Rounds

... 167

A suggestive explanation

... 171

ix

contents.

ix

A Saint — Hypnotised

... 175

Sweat-born and androgynes

... 177

–––––––

Stanza VIII. Evolution of the animal mammalians—the first fall

... 180

Archaic zoology

... 183

The sin of the Mindless

... 185

–––––––

What may be the objections to the foregoing

... 185

–––––––

Stanza IX. The final evolution of man

... 191

The hairy men of China

... 195

The separation of sexes

... 197

Primeval language

... 199

–––––––

Edens, serpents and dragons

... 202

The garden of Eden a college

... 203

Flying camels

... 205

Two schools of magic

... 211

The flying dragons

... 219

–––––––

The sons of God and the Sacred Island

... 220

The magicians of Atlantis

... 223

–––––––

Stanza X. The history of the Fourth Race

... 227

The mysteries among the Mayas

... 229

Satanic myths

... 233

Mahasura and Satan

... 237

Man, the pale shadow of God

... 243

The curse of Vasishta

... 247

–––––––

Archaic teachings in the Purânas and Genesis

... 251

From worm to man

... 255

Identity of human and animal embryos

... 259

–––––––

A panoramic view of the early races

... 263

The natural “fall”

... 267

The symbolism of Kronos

... 269

x

contents.

x

Stanza X.—Continued

... 271

The Golden Age

... 273

The Devil’s outside humanity

... 275

–––––––

Are giants a fiction ?

... 277

The seven virgin youths

... 281

The Tibetan Lilith

... 285

The races of men not all human

... 287

–––––––

The races with the “third eye”

... 289

Occult physiology

... 295

The evolution of the eye

... 299

The third eye is now a gland

... 301

–––––––

The primeval manus of humanity

... 307

The four earlier Races

... 311

The esoteric meaning of “fish”

... 313

–––––––

Stanza XI.—The civilization and destruction of the Fourth and Fifth Races

... 316

Degeneration of mankind

... 319

Atlantis now ocean floor

... 325

Changes of climate

... 329

How to read symbols

... 335

The antediluvian Buddhas

... 339

–––––––

Cyclopean ruins and colossal stones as witnesses to giants

... 341

Living, speaking, and moving stones

... 345

It takes a god to become a man

... 349

–––––––

Stanza XII.—The Fifth Race and its divine instructors

... 351

The astronomical dragon

... 353

Serpents and dragons under different Symbolisms

... 355

The sidereal and cosmic glyphs

... 357

Our divine instructors

... 365

The origin of the satanic myth

... 378

Noah was a kabir, hence he must have been a demon

... 390

xi

contents.

xi

The oldest Persian traditions about the polar, and the submerged continents

... 393

Western speculations founded on the Greek and Purânic traditions

... 401

The “curse” from a philosophical point of view

... 409

–––––––

Additional fragments from a commentary on the verses of stanza XII

... 423

The oldest records about Atlantis

... 425

The doom of Atlantis

... 427

The races, sub-races, and family races

... 434

–––––––

Conclusion

... 437

–––––––

BOOK II.—PART II.
THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS.

Esoteric tenets corroborated in every scripture

... 449

–––––––

§ XVI. Adam-Adami

... 452

The Cabalistic four Adams

... 457

–––––––

XVII. The “Holy of Holies” : its degradation

... 459

Christian symbolism

... 463

The “four-faced” Brahmâ

... 465

The old and the new Jehovah

... 469

–––––––

XVIII. On the myth of the “fallen angel,” in its various aspects

... 475

The Evil Spirit : who and what ?

... 475

The gods of light proceed from the gods of darkness

... 483

The many meanings of the “war in heaven”

... 492

–––––––

XIX. Is Pleroma Satan’s lair ?

... 506

Jehovah’s personating spirit

... 509

The Mysterium Magnum

... 512

The logos and Satan are one

... 515

xii

contents.

xii

XX. Prometheus the titan

... 519

His origin in ancient India

... 519

The boon he gives

... 523

–––––––

XXI. Enoïchion-Henoch

... 529

–––––––

XXII. The symbolism of the mystery names Iao, and Jehovah

... 536

Cross and circle

... 545

The fall of the cross into matter

... 553

–––––––

XXIII. The Upanishads in Gnostic literature

... 563

When time be no longer

... 565

The divine Self’s wisdom

... 566

–––––––

XXIV. The cross and the Pythagorean Decade

... 573

Poseidon’s five ministers

... 577

The mystery of the number six

... 583

The cross and Christian after-thought

... 587

–––––––

XXV. The mysteries of the Hebdomad

... 590

Saptaparna

... 590

The Tetraktis in relation to the Heptagon

... 598

The septenary element in the Vedas

... 605

The septenary in the exoteric works

... 611

Seven in astronomy, science and magic

... 618

The seven souls of the egyptologists

... 630

––––––––––––––

BOOK II.—PART III.
ADDENDA.
SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.

I. Archaic, or modern anthropology?

... 645

The occult and the modern doctrines

... 649

Science is silent on every problem

... 653

xiii

contents.

xiii

II. The ancestors mankind is offered by science

... 656

Various modes of reproduction

... 659

A pithecoid man wanted

... 669

Plastidular souls and conscious nerve-cells

... 670

The atoms of our “father-bathybius”

... 674

–––––––

III. The fossil relics of man and the anthropoid ape

... 675

Insurmountable difficulties for the Darwinians

... 677

The argument of “rudimentary organs ”

... 683

“Epitomized history” in the Fœtus

... 684

The evidence of skulls

... 687

–––––––

IV. Duration of the geological periods, race cycles, and the antiquity of man

... 690

Sayce’s sketch of chronology

... 691

(a) Speculations on the age of the Globe

... 694

The adept-astronomer

... 698

(b) On chains of planets and their plurality

... 699

States of consciousness

... 701

Worlds mentioned in the Bible

... 703

(c) Esoteric geological chronology

... 709

Parallelism of life

... 711

The two sciences contrasted

... 713

The palæolithic landseer

... 721

Astral man—the solution

... 728

The kabalists and science

... 730

–––––––

V. Organic evolution and creative centres

... 731

Dhyan chohans and these centres

... 732

(a) Origin and evolution of the mammalia

... 734

(b) The European palæolithic races — whence and how distributed

... 738

xiv

contents.

xiv

VI. Giants, civilizations, and submerged continents traced in history

... 742

A mysterious nation

... 743

The seven sabbaths

... 747

“Revelation” and the “Secret Doctrine”

... 748

Druidic stones

... 752

Races of giants

... 755

Mazdean “seven earths”

... 759

(a) Statements about the Sacred Islands

... 760

The heirloom of Atlantis

... 763

The god-bearing land

... 765

The power of names

... 767

The sons of Cœlus and Terra

... 769

Southern and Northern Atlantis

... 770

Niobe and her children

... 771

The cycles of time

... 773

The titans in prison

... 776

–––––––

VII. Scientific and geological proofs of the existence of several submerged continents

... 778

Corroborations of Occultism by geology

... 779

Evidence of the flora

... 781

Atlantis necessary to ethnology

... 783

Astræa falls on her head

... 785

Communication between South-Sea Islands

... 788

Evidence of language

... 790

Ragon explains Masonic symbols

... 795

The end a fitting prelude to Truth

... 797

––––––– INDEX.

See also

• Main page for this book with general description and links.
• Changes made to this edition.