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{{Page aside|553}}
{{Page aside|553}}
“The secret side of Fire is concealed in its evident (or objective) side,” he writes,<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i (De Simone), § 9 (ed. Cruice, p. 247).</ref> which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of stating Plato’s idea of the Intelligible ('''τὸ νοητόν''', to noeton) and Sensible ('''τὸ αἰσθητόν''', to aistheton), and Aristotle’s teaching on the Power or Potentiality ('''δύναμις''', dynamis) and Actual Existence ('''ἐνέργεια''', energeia). For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained all. And thus all the parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, are susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial emanation are our Dhyâni-Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher Aeôns. This “Fire” is the symbol of the active and living side of divine nature. Behind it lay “infinite Potentiality in Potentiality,” which Simon named “that which has stood, stands and will stand” ['''ὁ ἐστῶς''', '''στας''', '''στησόμενος''', o estôs, stas, stesomenos] or permanent stability and personified Immutability.
From the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the objective side of Fire being the Mother, the secret side of it being the Father. Simon called these emanations Syzygies ['''συζυγία'''] (a united pair or couple), for they emanated two-by-two, one as an active and the other as a passive Aeôn. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: Mind ('''νοῦς''', Nous ) and Thought ('''ἐπίνοια''', Epinoia),<ref>[Irenaeus and Epiphanius both call this second partner in the first pair of “Roots” '''Εννοία''', Ennoia.]</ref> Voice ('''φωνή''', Phone) and Name ('''ὄνομα''', Onoma), Reason ('''λογισμός''', Logismos) and Reflection ('''ἐνθύμησις''', Enthumesis),<ref>[The Abbé Cruice translated Enthumesis as “Conception.”]</ref> the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six Aeôns of the Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says: “Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite Potency [of its parent] but it was there only in Potency, and not in Act. That Potency had to be called forth (or conformed) through an image in order that it should manifest in all its essence, virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated Potency become similar to its parent, the eternal and infinite Potency, If, on the contrary, it remained simply potentially in the six Potencies and failed to be conformed through an image, then the Potency would not pass into action, {{Page aside|554}}but would get lost”;<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 12 (ed. Cruice, p. 250).</ref> in clearer terms, it would become atrophied, as the modern expression goes.
Now, what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all things to the Infinite Potency the Aeôns had to imitate it in its action, and becoming themselves, in their turn, emanative principles, as was their parent, giving life to new beings, and becoming Potencies in actu themselves? To produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyâúakti,<ref>See The Secret Doctrine, Index, sub voce.</ref> is the direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own action. That power, then, is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial Aeôns and even in the secondary emanations, by the very fact of their and our descent from the One Primordial Principle, the infinite Power, or Potency. Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six Aeôns, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into Act, and emanated, in their turn, six secondary Aeôns, which were each synthesized by their respective Parent. In the Philosophumena we read that Simon compared the Aeôns to the “Tree of Life.” “ ‘It is written,’ said Simon in The Great Revelation ('''ἡ μεγάλη ἀπόφασις''', he Megale Apophasis),<ref>[Also called the Great Announcement or Declaration.]</ref> of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author, ‘that there are two ramifications of the universal Aeôns, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sige (Silence).<ref>['''σιγὴ ἀκατάληπτος''', Sige akataleptos.]</ref> One of these [series of Aeôns] appears from above. This is the Great Potency, Universal Mind [or Divine Ideation, the Mahat of the Hindus]: it orders all things and is male. The other is from below, for it is the Great [manifested] Thought, the female Aeôn, generating all things. These [two kinds of Aeôns] corresponding<ref>Literally standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.</ref> with each other, have conjunction and manifest the middle distance [the intermediate sphere, or plane], the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end’.”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 18 (ed. Cruice, 261).</ref> This female “Air” is our Ether, or the Kabalistic Astral Light. It is, then, the Second World of Simon, born of FIRE, the principle of everything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the Intelligent, Divine Flame, omnipresent and infinite. In Simon’s system, this Second World was ruled by a Being, or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and bad. This Parent-Being, like the primordial infinite Potency, is also called “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” so long as the manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated in actu and became like unto its own Parent, it was not dual or androgyne.
{{Page aside|555}}
It is the Thought that emanated from it (Sige) which became as itself (the Parent), having become like unto its own 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 pre-existing; 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 (Dynamis, 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 yet are found dual.’’<ref>Ibid.</ref>
“He (Simon) calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth: the male looks down from on high and takes thought for his Syzygy (or Spouse), for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to Earth ”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 13 (ed. Cruice, 251).</ref>
Simon’s Third World with its third series of six Aeôns 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 Spirit 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 faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenaeus supplements the information on the further development of these six Aeôns. We learn from him that Thought, having separated itself 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 {{Page aside|556}}higher Aeôns, the primordial seven. It is for him to develop, “with the image before him of the highest,” by imitation in actu, the Potency with which the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed.2 Here we may again quote with advantage from the Philosophumena:
“So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable (principle) is concealed in everything in potency, not in act. This is ‘that which has stood stands and will stand,’ viz: that which has stood above in ingenerable Potency, that which stands below in the stream of the waters generated in an image, that which will stand above, beside the blissful Infinite Potency, if it makes itself like unto this image. For three, he says, are they that stand, and without these three Aeôns of stability, there is no adornment of the generable which, according to them [the Simonians], is borne on the water, and being moulded according to the similitude is a perfect and celestial (Aeôn), in no manner of thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say; ‘I and thou [are] one; before me [wast] thou; that which is after thee [is] I.’ This, he says, is the one Potency divided into above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking itself finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse, daughter and son, one, for it is the Root of all.”<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI, ch. i, § 17 (ed. Cruice, 258-59).</ref>
Thus of this triple Aeôn, 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, “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 Aeôn from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why, then, should not Man, the direct heir of the highest Aeôn, do the same, by the potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is Kriyâśâkti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, from invisible, indestructible matter.
Truly says Jeremiah,<ref>Jeremiah i, 5.</ref> quoting the “Word of the Lord:” “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee”; for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Aeôn, or Divine Man, both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as occult as what is given in Instruction No. I. For the terrestrial Paradise {{Page aside|557}}is the Womb, says Simon,<ref>Philosophumena, lib. VI. ch. i, § 14 (ed. Cruice, 254).</ref> Eden the region surrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; this cord is divided into four Heads, the streams that flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the Foetus, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to Simon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion, fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta.<ref>At first there are the omphalo-mesenteric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the “vascular area” on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed. As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the Foetus and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the used-up blood from the foetus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus science corroporates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology. While this Instruction was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson (E.S.T.) which were printed in 1884 and 1888, and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the foetal nutrition as advanced in Instruction No. I. Briefly, the foetus is nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any of our members care to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson’s Remark on the Nutrition of the Foetus (Wood & Co., New York). [Read before the San Francisco Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, April 12, 1888.]</ref>
The above is given for the elucidation of that which is to follow. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were instructed by him in magic. They made use of so-called “exorcisms” (as in the New Testament), incantations, philtres; believed in dreams and visions, and produced them at will; and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them. Simon Magus was called “the Great Power of God” literally “the Potency of the Deity which is called Great.” That which was then termed Magic we now call Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.
His direct disciple, Menander,3 was also a great Magician. Says Irenaeus, among other writers: “The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.”<ref>[Adv. Haer., I, xxiii, 5.]</ref> Thus both master and pupil are shown to have attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, powers which can be obtained only through “the help of the Devil,” as Christians claim; and yet their “works” were identical with those spoken of in the New Testament, wherein such phenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are, therefore, believed in and accepted as coming from and through {{Page aside|558}}God. But the question is, have these so-called “miracles” of the “Christ” and Apostles ever been explained any more than the magical achievements of so-called sorcerers and magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word “miracle.” Let us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic.
The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill-fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in Philosophumena, or the third Aeôns, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third Aeôns possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him that divine spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man’s committing the original sin as the angels had committed it aeôns before by refusing to create.<ref>The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II (consult Index, s.v. Angels).</ref> Finally, after detaining the Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through ages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on earth to rescue this “lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief rites of this kind of magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helena.” It was the marriage of Nous (Âtma-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and {{Page aside|559}}are endowed with divine powers. For Âtman in man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial divine Fire (or the eternal and universal “that which has stood, stands and will stand”), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the “Father” in her turn, and also Will. She is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” thus becoming in conjunction with Manas, male-female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia, Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Śakti of the inner man, the female potency.
Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of ENNOIA ('''Έννοια''', Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him, (i.e., after initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no older,” become “immortal.”<ref>Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., lib. III, cap. xxvi (p. 98).</ref> The “resurrection” promised by Menander meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man’s immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Râja-Yogis–– Magic.
Every person who has read Neo-Platonic philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Iamblichus, the author of the De Mysteriis, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Science of Râja-Yoga.
Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, divine, and exalted above all others. “It is the great remedy for all. . . . It neither takes its source in, nor is limited to, the body or its passions, to the human compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our upper Gods,” our divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to the primeval divine Fire.<ref>De Mysteriis, p. 100, lines 10-19; p. 109, fol. i.</ref>
Iamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad demons who deceive men (the spooks of the séance-room), as vehemently as he exalts divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the Theurgist must imperatively be “a man of high morality and a chaste soul.” The other kind of magic is used only by impure, selfish men and has nothing of the divine in it. . . . No real Vates would ever consent to find in its communications anything coming from our higher Gods. . . . Thus one (Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other, subjection to our lower nature. . . . One requires {{Page aside|560}}holiness of the soul, a holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the desecration of it (the Soul). . . .One is the union with the Gods (with one’s God), the source of all Good; the other, intercourse with demons (Elementals), which, unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us step by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short: “Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers, supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is consolidated in their [the Gods’] actions and intelligences, until it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the Egyptians.”<ref>De Mysteriis, p. 290, lines 15-18 et seq., caps. V & VII.</ref>
Now Iamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia ['''μαντεία'''] which is Samâdhi, the highest trance.<ref>Ibid., p. 100, Sect. III, cap. III.</ref> He speaks also of dream which is divine vision, when man re-becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or Râja-Yoga, a man arrives at: (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the plane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstasy and Illumination; (3) Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will); (4) and Domination over the minor, senseless Demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our purified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter. And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.
But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study, it is idle to anthropomorphize the formless. By “formless” I mean the higher and the lower Gods, the supermundane as well as mundane Spirits, or Beings, which to beginners can be revealed only in Colors and Sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which to the untrained intellect, to the Chela, will be visible only by its Aura. The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums belong to one or another of the only three categories they can see: (a) Astrals of living men; (b) Nirmânakâyas (Adepts, good or bad, whose bodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in their ethereal personalities); and (c) Spooks, Elementaries and Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed {{Page aside|561}}from the Astral Light in general, or from figures in the “mind’s eye” of the audience, or of the medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective Auras.
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.
In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies directly connected and forever linked with man.
{{HPB-CW-separator}}
<center><big>'''HIERARCHIES'''</big></center>
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Enough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane masses the sentence, Om Mani Padme Hûm, means simply “O, the Jewel in the Lotus,” esoterically it signifies “O, 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 Instruction, the correspondences between Colors, Sounds and “Principles” were given; and those who have read the second volume of The Secret Doctrine will remember that these seven principles are derived from the seven great Hierarchies of Angels or Dhyâni-Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colors and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested Logos.
In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colors, and in the number, determined by the vibrations of color 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 color and sound to the geometrical figures which, as explained in The Secret Doctrine,<ref>Vol. I, pp. 4 et seq.; Vol II, pp. 36 et seq.</ref> 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 {{Page aside|562}}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, Colors and Numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colors, 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 Colors, according to the scale of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross matter to that of spirit thus:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 2em auto; border-spacing: 1em 0; width: 500px;"
|-
|PRINCIPLES
|COLORS
|NOTES
|NUMBERS
|STATES OF MATTER
|-
|Chhâyâ, Shadow or Double
|Violet
|Si
|1
|Ether
|-
|Higher Manas, Spiritual Intelligence
|Indigo
|La
|2
|Critical State, called Air in Occultism
|-
|Auric Envelope
|Blue
|Sol
|3
|Steam or Vapor
|-
|Lower Mans, or Animal Soul
|Green
|Fa
|4
|Critical State
|-
|Buddhi, or Spiritual Soul
|Yellow
|Mi
|5
|Water
|-
|Prâna, or Life-Principle
|Orange
|Re
|6
|Critical State
|-
|Kâma-Rûpa, the seat of Animal Life
|Red
|Do
|7
|Ice
|}
Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondence 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 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.
To proceed: (see page 564).
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 Colors and Sounds and therefore of Numbers, are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics {{Page aside|563}}for it is ascertained that there exist slower 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 colors, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of color or 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.<sup>4</sup>
Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colors, 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 colors themselves, or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colors correspond and become complementary in the following way:
<center>Violet</center>
<center>(1) Red--------------------- -------- -------------------Green</center>
<center>(2) Orange----------------- -------- --------------------Blue</center>
<center>(3) Yellow----------------- -------- --------------------Indigo</center>
{{Page aside|564}}
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[[File:Hpb_cw_12_564_1.jpg|center|x800px]]
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Hence the full septenary man, symbolically as to the geometrical figures, and in reality as to the various colors of his principles, presents some such appearance as in Plate II.
A faint violet, mist-like form represents the Astral Man with an oviform bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colors. That color is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most active 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 color, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, if he is 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 colors 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.
A good clairvoyant moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogi 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 Yogi, 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 color of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous color with {{Page aside|566}}vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the extreme Red,<ref> COLORS WAVE-LENGTHS IN MICRONS (ì) NUMBER OF VIBRATIONS IN TRILLIONS<br>
Violet extreme----------------- 400 ----------------- 759<br>
Violet---------------------------- 423 ----------------- 709<br>
Violet-Indigo------------------- 439 ----------------- 683<br>
Indigo--------------------------- 449 ----------------- 668<br>
Indigo-Blue--------------------- 459 ----------------- 654<br>
Blue------------------------------ 479 ----------------- 631<br>
Blue-Green--------------------- 492 ----------------- 610<br>
Green---------------------------- 512 ----------------- 586<br>
Green-Yellow------------------ 532 ----------------- 564<br>
Yellow-------------------------- 551 ----------------- 544<br>
Yellow-Orange----------------- 571 ----------------- 525<br>
Orange-------------------------- 583 ----------------- 514<br>
Orange-Red--------------------- 596 ----------------- 503<br>
Red------------------------------ 620 ----------------- 484<br>
Red extreme-------------------- 645 ----------------- 465</ref> 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 paralysed, 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 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, man’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 color and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning {{Page aside|567}}of the [[File:Hpb_cw_12_567_1.jpg|x50px]] Macrocosm and the [[File:Hpb_cw_12_567_2.jpg|x50px]] Microcosm, will when combined give [[File:Hpb_cw_12_567_3.jpg|x50px]] the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “Om Mani Padme Hûm.”
This is why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the school of Pythagoras.
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<center><big>'''THE ROOTS OF COLOR AND SOUND'''</big></center>
<center><big>'''PLATE III'''</big></center>
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Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colors 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 colors. But in this case one color, 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 colors; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colors in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid in color than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that color. This color will be the characteristic color 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 animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man.<ref>See Five Years of Theosophy (1885), pp. 273-78: “About the Mineral Monad” [Collected Writings, Vol. V, pp. 171-75].</ref> Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific color. 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.
Plate III demonstrates the fact by showing the symbol adopted in the Eastern school to represent the Seven Hierarchies of creative Powers; call them Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the {{Page aside|568}} 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 Prajapatis with us.
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<center><big>'''DIAGRAM III'''</big></center>
<center>The student should carefully examine the adjoining Diagram.</center>
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| width=150px |Thus the Linga-Sarira 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 color 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 color 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 Science of Magnetism and Hypnotism.
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The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after their corresponding colors, 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.
The student must, however, remember that the colors which we see with our physical eyes are not the true colors 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 color may be imitated by properly combining three other colors. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three distinct color sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven colors 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 “spiritual” Red, if the term may be allowed, while the Red (blood-red) of the spectrum is the color of Kma, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.
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<center><big>'''THE UNITY OF DEITY'''</big></center>
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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 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 its existence. In every ancient religion the One was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chaldea and Phoenicia, and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples of three, five, and seven; and also of 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 had 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: “Oh God {{Page aside|570}}Ani (the Spiritual Sun), thou residest in the agglomeration of thy divine personages.”<ref>Apud Grébaut Papyrus Orbiney, p. 101.</ref>
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 Aeons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Sddhus of the Purânas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus,5 holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides;6 and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Aletheia, 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 R, they add: “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.” (Hymn to Amon-Râ. 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,” Lucifer for March 1889.<ref>[Collected Writings, Vol. XI.]</ref> Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Aletheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Plerôma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Aletheia of Occult Science.
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