Stanza III.

1. … The last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity thrills through Infinitude (a). The Mother swells, expanding from within without, like the Bud of the Lotus (b).

(a) The seemingly paradoxical use of the term, “Seventh Eternity,” thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in Esoteric Philosophy. The latter divides boundless Duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time (Kâla); and conditioned Time (Khandakâla). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite Time, the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat—the [pg 092]Universal Intelligence, limited by manvantaric duration. With some schools, Mahat is the first-born of Pradhâna (undifferentiated Substance, or the periodical aspect of Mûlaprakriti, the Root of Nature), which (Pradhâna) is called Mâyâ, Illusion. In this respect, I believe, Esoteric teaching differs from the Vedântin doctrines of both the Advaita and the Visishthadvaita schools. For it says that, while Mûlaprakriti, the noumenon, is self-existing and without any origin—is, in short, parentless, Anupâdaka, as one with Brahman—Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a phantasm of the former; so Mahat, the first-born of Jñâna (or Gnôsis), Knowledge, Wisdom or the Logos—is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute Nirguna (Parabrahman), the One Reality, “devoid of attributes and qualities”; while with some Vedântins Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.

(b) Therefore, the “last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity” was “fore-ordained”—by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and changeless Law which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the Days and Nights of Brahmâ. The expansion “from within without” of the Mother, called elsewhere the “Waters of Space,” “Universal Matrix,” etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity, without reference to size or limitation or area. “The ever [to us] invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its periodical Shadow from its own plane into the Lap of Mâyâ.” It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size—for infinite extension admits of no enlargement—was a change of condition. It expanded “like the Bud of the Lotus”; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from “Dawn” to “Night” during the manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man to mite, from giant trees to the tiniest blades of grass.

All this, teaches the Hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought; the word “Eternity,” note well again, standing here only in the sense of “Æon,” as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-antara? It means, literally, “between two Manus,” of whom there are fourteen in every [pg 093]Day of Brahmâ, such a Day consisting of 1,000 aggregates of four Ages, 1,000 “Great Ages” or Mahâyugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists in their dictionaries tell us that the term “Manu” is from the root man, “to think”; hence “the thinking man.” But, esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the “Thought Divine” (as the Hermetic Pymander); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus’ (or Dhyân Chohans’) errands, and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without—that is, to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes, from the noumenal to the lowest phenomenal, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity—the acme of Illusion, or the grossest matter.

2. The Vibration sweeps along, touching93 with its swift Wing the whole Universe and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness, the Darkness that breathes94 over the slumbering Waters of Life.

The Pythagorean Monas is also said to dwell in solitude and “Darkness” like the “Germ.” The idea of the Breath of Darkness moving over “the slumbering Waters of Life,” which is Primordial Matter with the latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the Brâhmanical Nârâyana (the Mover on the Waters), who is the personification of the Eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahaman) of the Eastern Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos—the female principle in symbolism—are the vacuum (to our mental sight), in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, for “Nature abhors a vacuum,” according to the Peripatetics and every ancient philosopher.

In all Cosmogonies “Water” plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understand by it the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used [pg 094]by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is employed in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition.

3. Darkness radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the Waters, into the Mother-Deep. The Ray shoots through the Virgin egg, the Ray causes the Eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal Germ,95 which condenses into the World-Egg.

The “solitary Ray” dropping into the “Mother-Deep” may be taken to mean Divine Thought, or Intelligence, impregnating Chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a metaphysical abstraction, is a reality. The “Virgin-Egg,” being in one sense the abstract of all ova, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical Germ, which later becomes in symbolism the Mundane Egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, “the promise and potency” of all the Universe. Though the idea per se is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a true symbol, for it suggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings before the mind’s eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless Space, a Universe as shoreless in magnitude, if not as endless in its objective manifestation. The symbol of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere being with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity—a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of vision, or of thought, is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one’s self in every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, “whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere”—a conception which enters into the compound idea of this emblem.

The “World-Egg” is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted [pg 095]symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony, where it is largely associated with the serpent symbol, the latter being everywhere, in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power, repeating in miniature, in the egg, the process of cosmic evolution—both due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit—fully justified the selection of this graphic symbol. The “Virgin-Egg” is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype, the “Virgin Mother”—Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the virgin female, the Immaculate Root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Kosmos, as receptive Nature, is an egg fructified—yet left immaculate; for once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural Elements, “four ready [ether, fire, air, water], three secret.” This may be found stated in Vishnu Purâna, where elements are translated “envelopes,” and a secret one is added—Ahamkâra.96 The original text has no Ahamkâra; it mentions seven Elements without specifying the last three.

4. The Three97 fall into the Four98. The Radiant Essence becomes Seven inside, Seven outside (a). The Luminous Egg,99which in itself is Three,100 curdles and spreads in milk-white Curds throughout the Depths of Mother, the Root that grows in the Depths of the Ocean of Life (b).

The use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient scriptures, as in the Purânas, the Egyptian Book of the Dead and even the Bible—must be explained. In the Book of Dzyan, as in the Kabalah, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied—the Figures, often simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are [pg 096]all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former are but conventional glyphs; the latter, the basic symbols of all. That is to say, the one are purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as Matter stands to Spirit—the extreme poles of the One Substance.

As Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the Number is to Mind the same as it is to Matter, “an incomprehensible agent.” Perhaps so to the profane, never to the initiated mind. Number is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath emanating from what he called God and what we call the All, the Breath which alone could organize the physical Cosmos, “where naught obtains its form but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number.” It is instructive to quote Balzac’s words upon this subject:

(b) “The Radiant Essence curdles and spreads throughout the Depths” of Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy of explanation: it is the Milky Way, the World-Stuff, or Primordial Matter in its first form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words, or even lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the most complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To begin with, it contains the whole pantheon of mysterious objects,102 every one of them having some [pg 097]definite Occult meaning, extracted from the Hindû allegorical “Churning of the Ocean” by the Gods. Besides Amrita, the water of life or immortality, Surabhi, the “cow of plenty,” called “the fountain of milk and curds,” was extracted from this “sea of milk.” Hence the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the productive, the other the generative power in Nature: symbols connected with both the solar and the cosmic deities. The specific properties, for Occult purposes, of the “fourteen precious things,” being explained only at the Fourth Initiation, cannot be given here; but the following may be remarked. In the Shatapatha Brâhmana it is stated that the Churning of the Ocean of Milk took place in the Satya Yuga, the first Age which immediately followed the “Deluge.” As, however, neither the Rig Veda nor Manu—both preceding Vaivasvata’s “Deluge,” that of the bulk of the Fourth Race—mention this Deluge, it is evident that it is neither the Great Deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the Deluge of Noah, which is here meant. This “Churning” relates to a period before the earth’s formation, and is in direct connection with another universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which culminated in the Christian dogma of the “War in Heaven,” and the “Fall of the Angels.” The Brâhmanas, reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects often clashing with each other, are preëminently occult works, hence used purposely as blinds. They are allowed to survive for public use and property only because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar.

5. The Root remains, the Light remains, the Curds remain, and still Oeaohoo is One.

“Oeaohoo” is rendered “Father-Mother of the Gods” in the Commentaries, or the “Six in One,” or the Septenary Root from which all proceeds. All depends upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one, three, or even seven syllables, by adding an e after the final o. This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.

“Is One” refers to the Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being, whether in an active or passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the Rootless Root of All; hence, one with Parabrahman: in another sense it is a name for the manifested One Life, the eternal living Unity. The “Root” means, as already explained, Pure Knowledge (Sattva),103 eternal (nitya) unconditioned Reality, or Sat (Satya), whether we call it Parabrahman or Mûlaprakriti, for these are but the two symbols of the One. The “Light” is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of differentiations. The “Curds” are the first differentiation, and probably also refer to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of the Milky Way—the matter we know. This “matter,” which, according to the revelation received from the primeval Dhyâni-Buddhas, is, during the periodical Sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity conceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisattva—this matter, radiant and cool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered through Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the “star-stuff.”

6. The Root of Life was in every Drop of the Ocean of Immortality,104and the Ocean was Radiant Light, which was Fire, and Heat, and Motion. Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own Essence, the Body of Fire and Water, of Father and Mother.

The Essence of Darkness being Absolute Light, Darkness is taken as the appropriate allegorical representation of the condition of the Universe during Pralaya, or the term of Absolute Rest, or Non-Being, as it appears to our finite minds. The “Fire, and Heat, and Motion,” here spoken of, are, of course, not the fire, heat, and motion of Physical Science, but the underlying abstractions, the noumena, or the soul, of [pg 099]the essence of these material manifestations—the “things in themselves,” which, as Modern Science confesses, entirely elude the instruments of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, although it can equally as little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. “Fire and Water, or Father and Mother,” may be taken here to mean the divine Ray and Chaos. “Chaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos [the first-born Light],” says a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis, the “disposer of all things.”105

According to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the profane for once correctly, if only partially, “Light and Darkness are identical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind”; and according to Robert Fludd, “Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible.”106 According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, Darkness is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of Light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is Matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute Light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an Illusion, or Mâyâ.

Even in the mind-baffling and science-harassing Genesis,107 light is created out of darkness—“and darkness was upon the face of the deep”—and not vice versâ. “In him [in darkness] was life; and the life was the light of men.”108 A day may come when the eyes of men will be opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now the verse in the Gospel of John that says, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” They will see then that the word “darkness” does not apply to man’s spiritual eyesight, but indeed to Darkness, the Absolute, that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize) transient Light, however transcendent to human eyes. Demon est Deus inversus. The Devil is now called “darkness” by the Church, whereas in the Bible, in the Book of Job, he is called the “Son of God,” the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer. There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the luminous “Son of the Morning,” or Manvantaric Dawn. He has [pg 100]been transformed by the Church into Lucifer or Satan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be sacrificed to the new dogma.

7. Behold, O Lanoo,109 the Radiant Child of the Two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory—Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the Depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo, the Younger, the —— 110 (a). He shines forth as the Sun, he is the Blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the Eka111 is Chatur, and Chatur takes to itself Tri, and the Union produces the Sapta, in whom are the Seven, which become the Tridasha,112 the Hosts and the Multitudes (b). Behold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East To West. He shuts out the Above, and leaves the Below to be seen as the Great Illusion. He marks the places for the Shining Ones,113and turns the Upper114 into a shoreless Sea of Fire (c), and the One Manifested115 into the Great Waters.

(a) “Bright Space, Son of Dark Space,” corresponds to the Ray dropped at the first thrill of the new Dawn into the great Cosmic Depths, from which it reëmerges differentiated as “Oeaohoo, the Younger” (the “New Life”), to be to the end of the Life-Cycle the Germ of all things. He is “the Incorporeal Man who contains in himself the Divine Idea,” the generator of Light and Life, to use an expression of Philo Judæus. He is called the “Blazing Dragon of Wisdom,” because, firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric Philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, the “Son of the Sun,” contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (Sephiroth), [pg 101]and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. “He who bathes in the Light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the Veil of Mâyâ.”

“Kwan-Shai-Yin” is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshvara, and as such is an androgynous deity, like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi of antiquity. It is only by some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized, and represented with female attributes; under his female aspect becoming Kwan-Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, called the “Divine Voice.”116 The latter is the patron deity of Tibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a number of monasteries.117

The higher gods of antiquity are all “Sons of the Mother” before they become “Sons of the Father.” The Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, son of Cronus-Saturn, “Infinite Time” (Kâla), in their origin were represented as male-female. Zeus is said to be the “beautiful virgin,” and Venus is made bearded. Apollo was originally bisexual, so is Brahmâ-Vâch in Manu and the Purânas. Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes. Finally in St. John’s vision in Revelation, the Logos, who is now connected with Jesus, is hermaphrodite, for he is described as having female breasts. So also is Tetragrammaton, or Jehovah. But there are two Avalokiteshvaras in Esotericism; the First and the Second Logos.

No religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days of politics and science. In Southern India the writer has seen a converted native making pûjâ with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman’s clothes and with a ring in its nose. On asking the meaning of this masquerade, we were answered that it was Jesu-Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the permission of the Padre, as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two statues, or “idols” as they, very properly, were called by a witness, another but a non-converted Hindû. Blasphemous this will appear to a dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm of logic to the converted Hindû. The esoteric Christos in the Gnôsis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric Theology he is male and female.

(b) The “Dragon of Wisdom” is the One, the “Eka” or Saka. It is curious that Jehovah’s name in Hebrew should also be One, Achad. “His name is Achad,” say the Rabbins. The Philologists ought to decide which of the two is derived from the other, linguistically and symbolically; surely, not the Sanskrit. The “One” and the “Dragon” are expressions used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah—esoterically Elohim—is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve; and the Dragon is an old glyph for the Astral Light (Primordial Principle), “which is the Wisdom of Chaos.” Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute All (Universal Perfection eternally), traces both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, and hence becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant Christian Fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of this emblem into the absurd superstition called the “Devil.” They took this from the later Zoroastrians, who saw Devils or Evil in the Hindû Devas, and the word Evil has become by a double transmutation D’Evil (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical discrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of the serpent symbolized divine Wisdom and Perfection, and has always stood for psychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence, Hermes calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated into the Wisdom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis; the Gnostic Serpent with the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the Seven Hierarchies of the Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindû serpent Shesha or Ananta, the Infinite, a name of Vishnu, and his first Vâhana, or Vehicle, on the Primordial Waters. Like the Logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, these serpents have to be distinguished one from the other. Shesha or Ananta, the “Couch of Vishnu,” is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the Germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this Germ, the Manifested Universe; whereas, the Gnostic Ophis contains the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the one, three and seven-syllabled Oeaohoo of the archaic doctrine; i.e., the First Unmanifested Logos, the Second Manifested, the Triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the Rays of the latter on the material plane.

Yet they all made a difference between the good and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of the Kabalists)—between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region of the Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of Matter. For the Astral Light, or the Ether, of the ancient Pagans—the name Astral Light is quite modern—is Spirit-Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends, until it becomes Mâyâ, or the tempting and deceitful Serpent on our plane.

Jesus accepted the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching: “Be ye wise as serpents,” he says. “In the beginning, before Mother became Father-Mother, the Fiery Dragon moved in the Infinitudes alone.”118 The Aitareya Brahmana calls the Earth Sarparâjni, the “Serpent Queen,” and the “Mother of all that moves.” Before our globe became egg-shaped (and the Universe also), “a long trail of cosmic dust [or fire-mist] moved and writhed like a serpent in Space.” The “Spirit of God moving on Chaos” was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth—which symbolizes not only eternity and infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as also the Earth and Man, serpent-like, periodically cast off their old skins, to assume new ones after a time of rest. The serpent is surely not a less graceful or a more unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul! The Dragon was also the symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the Book of Hermes, Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of “Light, Fire, and Flame.” Pymander, the “Thought Divine” personified, says:

Here we find the unmistakable echo of the archaic Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head of the Evolution of Life the “Father,” who comes third and is the “Son of the Mother,” but the “Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the All.” Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahmâ or Shiva, appears as Vishnu, says the Sânkhya Sâra.120 Hence it has several aspects, just as the Logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, “that Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called Ego-ism, when it is born as (the feeling itself) ‘I,’ that is said to be the Secondary Creation.”121 And the translator (an able and learned Brâhman, not a European Orientalist) explains in a foot-note, “i.e., when Mahat develops into the feeling of Self-Consciousness—I—then it assumes the name of Egoism,” which, translated into our Esoteric phraseology, means—when Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that of the finite gods), and becomes Aham-ship. Why it is called the Mahat of the Secondary Creation (or the Ninth, the Kaumâra in Vishnu Purâna), will be explained hereafter.

(c) The “Sea of Fire” is, then, the Super-Astral (i.e., Noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root Mûlaprakriti, Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is also called the “Fiery Serpent,” as above described. If the student bears in mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and undying and that all the rest—as in the world of phenomena—are but so many various differentiated aspects and transformations (correlations, they are now called) of that One, from macrocosmical down to microcosmical effects, from super-human down to human and sub-human beings, the totality, in short, of objective existence—then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult Cosmology may be mastered. Thus in the Egyptian also as in the Indian Theogony there was a Concealed Deity, the One, and a creative, androgynous god; Shoo being the god of creation, and Osiris in his original primary form, the god “whose name is unknown.”122

All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognize (a) [pg 105]the identity of “Father-Mother” with Primordial Æther, or Âkâsha (Astral Light); and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “Fohat hardens and scatters the Seven Brothers”;123 which means that the Primordial Electric Entity—for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity—electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. “There exists a universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour,124 active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation” (Éliphas Lévi)—the “first light” of the primordial Elohim, the Adam, “male and female,” or (scientifically) Electricity and Life.

The ancients represented it by a serpent, for “Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither,” in zigzags. The Kabalah figures it with the Hebrew letter Teth, ט, whose symbol is the serpent which played such a prominent part in the Mysteries. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet, and the ninth door of the fifty portals, or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being. It is the magical agent par excellence, and designates in Hermetic philosophy “Life infused into Primordial Matter,” the essence that composes all things, and the spirit that determines their form. But there are two secret Hermetical operations, one spiritual, the other material, correlative and for ever united. As Hermes says:

It was not Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, alone, who taught that the Universe evolves, and its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into that of air, then into that of water, etc. Heraclitus of Ephesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena in Nature is fire. The intelligence that moves the Universe is fire, and fire is intelligence. And while Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of Miletus (600 years b.c.) of water, the Esoteric Doctrine [pg 106]reconciles all these philosophers, by showing that though each was right, the system of none was complete.

8. Where was the Germ, and where was now Darkness? Where is the Spirit of the Flame that burns in thy Lamp, O Lanoo? The Germ is That, and That is Light, the White Brilliant Son of the Dark Hidden Father..

The answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the reply of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the most essential truths of Occult Philosophy. It indicates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these senses themselves. Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the transcendentally metaphysical problem contained in the first question, he must be able to answer the second; while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first.

In the Sanskrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of Indian literature this Unrevealed Abstract Deity has no name. It is generally called “That” (Tad, in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was, and will be, or that can be so received by the human mind.

Among such appellations given—of course, only in Esoteric Philosophy—as the “Unfathomable Darkness,” the “Whirlwind,” etc., it is also called the “It of the Kâlahansa,” the “Kâla-ham-sa,” and even the “Kâli Hamsa” (Black Swan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and both sound like the nasal French an or am. As in the Hebrew so also in the Sanskrit many a mysterious sacred name conveys to the profane ear no more than some ordinary, and often vulgar word, because it is concealed anagrammatically or otherwise. This word Hansa, or Hamsa, is just such a case. Hamsa is equal to “A-ham-sa”—three words meaning “I am He”; while divided in still another way it will read “So-ham,” “He [is] I.” In this single word is contained, for him who understands the language of wisdom, the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man’s essence with god-essence. Hence the glyph of, and the allegory about, Kâlahansa (or Hamsa), and the name given to Brahman (neuter), later on to the male Brahmâ, of [pg 107]Hamsa-vâhana, “he who uses the Hamsa as his vehicle.” The same word may be read “Kâlaham-sa,” or “I am I, in the eternity of time,” answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian, “I am that I am.” The same doctrine is found in the Kabalah, as witness the following extract from an unpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned Kabalist:

It is useless to attempt to explain the mystery in full. Materialists and the men of Modern Science will never understand it, since, in order to obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly, to credit man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane, of the One Great Unit, the Logos, which is Itself the seven-vowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the Word.125 He who believes in all this, has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven planets of Occultism and of the Kabalah, with the twelve zodiacal signs; and attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an influence which, in the words of Mr. Ely Star (a French astrologer), “is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after the planetary spirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing men and things which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any affinity.” For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all that can now be given is that in both cases [pg 108]the symbol of Hansa (whether I, He, Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, among other things, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in Darkness beyond the reach of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindû knows, is a fabulous bird which, when (in the allegory) given milk mixed with water for its food, separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom—milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter.

That this allegory is very ancient and dates from the very earliest archaic period, is shown by the mention, in the Bhâgavata Purâna, of a certain caste named Hamsa or Hansa, which was the “one caste” par excellence; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among the Hindûs only “One Veda, One Deity, One Caste.” There is also a range in the Himâlayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount Meru, called Hamsa, and connected with episodes pertaining to the history of religious mysteries and initiations. As to Kâlahansa being the supposed Vehicle of Brahmâ-Prajâpati, in the exoteric texts and translations of the Orientalists, it is quite a mistake. Brahman, the neuter, is called by them Kâla-hansa, and Brahmâ, the male, Hansa-vâhana, because, forsooth, “his vehicle is a swan or goose.”126 This is a purely exoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahman, the infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, and, agreeably with the Vedântic texts, is an abstract deity, in no way characterized by the ascription of any human attributes, and at the same time it is maintained that he or it is called Kâlahansa—then how can it ever become the Vâhan of Brahmâ, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The “Swan or Goose” (Hansa) is the symbol of the male or temporary deity, Brahmâ, the emanation of the primordial Ray, which is made to serve as a Vâhan or Vehicle for the Divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of Darkness—for our human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahmâ, then, who is Kâlahansa, and the Ray, Hansa-vâhana.

As to the strange symbol thus chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a Universal Matrix, figured by the Primordial Waters of the Deep, or the opening for the reception, and subsequently for the issuing, of that One Ray (the Logos) which contains in itself the other Seven Procreative Rays or Powers (the Logoi or Builders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic [pg 109]fowl—whether swan or pelican127—with seven young ones, for a symbol, modified and adapted to the religion of every country. Ain Suph is called the “Fiery Soul of the Pelican” in the Book of Numbers.128 Appearing with every Manvantara as Nârâyana, or Svâyambhuva, the Self-Existent, and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the divine incubation as Brahmâ, or Prajâpati, the progenitor of the future Universe, into which he expands. He is Purusha (Spirit), but he is also Prakriti (Matter). Therefore it is only after separating itself into two halves—Brahmâ-Vâch (the female) and Brahmâ-Virâj (the male)—that the Prajâpati becomes the male Brahmâ.

9. Light is Cold Flame, and Flame is Fire, and Fire produces Heat, which yields Water—the Water of Life in the Great Mother.129

It must be remembered that the words “Light,” “Flame” and “Fire,” have been adopted by the translators from the vocabulary of the old “Fire Philosophers,”130 in order to render more clearly the meaning of the archaic terms and symbols employed in the original. Otherwise they would have remained entirely unintelligible to a European reader. To a student of the Occult, however, the above terms will be sufficiently clear.

All these—“Light,” “Flame,” “Cold,” “Fire,” “Heat,” “Water,” and “Water of Life”—are, on our plane, the progeny, or, as a modern Physicist would say, the correlations of Electricity. Mighty word, and a still mightier symbol! Sacred generator of a no less sacred progeny; of Fire—the creator, the preserver and the destroyer; of [pg 110]Light—the essence of our divine ancestors; of Flame—the soul of things. Electricity, the One Life at the upper rung of Being, and Astral Fluid, the Athanor of the Alchemists, at the lower; God and Devil, Good and Evil.

Now, why is Light called “Cold Flame”? In the order of Cosmic Evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the energy that actuates matter, after its first formation into atoms, is generated on our plane by Cosmic Heat; and before that period Cosmos, in the sense of dissociated matter, was not. The first Primordial Matter, eternal and coëval with Space, “which has neither a beginning nor an end, [is] neither hot nor cold, but is of its own special nature,” says the Commentary. Heat and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the “Cold Virgin,” and when awakened to life, as the “Mother.” The ancient Western cosmogonic myths state that at first there was only cold mist (the Father) and the prolific slime (the Mother, Ilus or Hyle), from which crept forth the Mundane Snake (Matter).131 Primordial Matter, then, before it emerges from the plane of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse of Fohat, is but “a cool radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid of every quality and aspect.” Even such are her First-born, the “Four Sons,” who “are One, and become Seven,”—the Entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists called the four of the seven primal “Centres of Force,” or Atoms, that develop later into the great Cosmic “Elements,” now divided into the seventy or so sub-elements, known to Science. The four “Primal Natures” of the first Dhyân Chohans are the so-called (for want of better terms) Âkâshic, Ethereal, Watery and Fiery. They answer, in the terminology of practical Occultism, to the scientific definitions of gases, which—to convey a clear idea to both Occultists and laymen—may be defined as parahydrogenic,132 paraoxygenic, oxyhydrogenic, and ozonic, or perhaps nitrozonic; the latter forces, or gases (in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances), being the most effective and active when energizing on the plane of more grossly differentiated matter. These elements are both electro-positive and electro-negative. These and many more are probably the missing links of Chemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to Occultists who practise phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining, or dissociating, the “Elements” [pg 111]in a certain way, by means of Astral Fire, that the greatest phenomena are produced.

10. Father-Mother spin a Web, whose upper end is fastened to Spirit,133 the Light of the One Darkness, and the lower one to its shadowy end, Matter;134 and this Web is the Universe spun out of the Two Substances made in One, which is Svabhâvat.

In the Mândukya Upanishad135 it is written, “As a spider throws out and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground … so is the Universe derived from the undecaying one,” Brahmâ, for the “Germ of unknown Darkness,” is the material from which all evolves and develops, “as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,” etc. This is only graphic and true, if the term Brahmâ, the “Creator,” is derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahmâ “expands,” and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance.

The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:

11. It136 expands when the Breath of Fire137 is upon it; It contracts when the Breath of the Mother138 touches it. Then the Sons139 dissociate and scatter, to return into their Mother’s Bosom, at the end of the Great Day, and re-become one with her. When it140 is cooling, it becomes radiant. Its Sons expand and contract through their own Selves and Hearts; they embrace Infinitude.

The expanding of the Universe, under the “Breath of Fire,” is very suggestive in the light of the fire-mist period, of which Modern Science speaks so much, and knows in reality so little.

Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the [pg 112]heavenly bodies into their Primeval One Element, explains the Commentary.

“Once disintegrated into its primal constituent, by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat [energy], of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourized, and held in the ‘Bosom of the Mother,’ until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic Matter [nebulæ], will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth.”

The expanding and contracting of the “Web” i.e., the world-stuff, or atoms—express here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean, of that which we may call the noumenon of Matter, emanated by Svabhâvat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many Scientists and especially of Astronomers—the cause of the first ignition of matter, or world-stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by refrigerative contraction, and other such cosmic riddles—for it points unmistakably to a knowledge by the ancients of such phenomena. “There is heat internal and heat external in every atom,” say the MSS. Commentaries, to which the writer has had access, “the Breath of the Father [Spirit], and the Breath [or Heat] of the Mother [Matter]”; and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires, by loss of heat through radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists’ own admission. For, as Professor Newcomb141 points out, “by losing heat a gaseous body contracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction.” This paradox, that a body gets hotter, as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, has led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it is argued, is lost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered pari passu with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at naught the law of Charles. Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox—only a seeming one in fact, as J. Homer Lane142 proved—by suggesting “something [pg 113]besides heat.” “May it not be,” he asks, “simply a repulsion among the molecules, which varies according to some law of the distance”?143 But even this will be found irreconcilable, unless this “something besides heat” is ticketed “Causeless Heat,” the “Breath of Fire,” the all-creative Force plus Absolute Intelligence, which Physical Science is not likely to accept.

However it may be, the reading of this Stanza, notwithstanding its archaic phraseology, shows it to be more scientific than even Modern Science.

12. Then Svabhâvat sends Fohat to harden the Atoms. Each144is a part of the Web.145 Reflecting the “Self-Existent Lord,”146like a Mirror, each becomes in turn a World.147

Fohat hardens the Atoms; i.e., by infusing energy into them, he scatters the “Atoms,” or Primordial Matter. “He scatters himself while scattering Matter into Atoms.”

It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon Matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation “Cosmic Electricity,” sometimes applied to it; but, in this case, to the commonly known properties of electricity, must be added others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that Modern Science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by electrical phenomena.