PREFACE
The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done. The papers given to me by H.P.B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious order; I have therefore taken each paper as a separate Section, and have arranged them as sequentially as possible. With the exception of the correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un-English idioms, the papers are as H.P.B. left them, save as otherwise marked. In a few cases I have filled in a gap, but any such addition is enclosed within square brackets, so as to be distinguished from the text. In "The Mystery of Buddha" a further difficulty arose; some of the Sections had been written four or five times over, each version containing some sentences that were not in the others; I have pieced these versions together,taking the fullest as basis, and inserting therein everything added in any other versions. It is, however, with some hesitation that I have included these Sections in the Secret Doctrine . Together with some most suggestive thought, they contain very numerous errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge. They were given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of the Secret Doctrine, and I therefore do not feel justified in coming between the author and the public, either by altering the statements, to make them consistent with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says she is acting entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any instructed reader that she makes - possibly deliberately - many statements so confused that they are mere blinds, and other statements - probably inadvertently - that are nothing more than the exoteric misunderstandings of esoteric truths. The reader must here, as everywhere, use his own judgment, but feeling bound to publish these Sections, I cannot let them go to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly erroneous. Doubtless, had the author herself issued this book, she would have entirely rewritten the whole of this division; as it was, it seemed best to give all she had said in the different copies, and to leave it in its rather unfinished state, for students will best like to have what she said as she said it, even though they may have to study it more closely than would have been the case had she remained to finish her work.
The quotations made have been as far as possible found, and correct references given; in this most laborious work a whole band of earnest and painstaking students,under the guidance of Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, have been my willing assistants. Without their aid it would not have been possible to give the references, as often a whole book had to be searched through, in order to find a paragraph of a few lines.
This volume completes the papers left by H.P.B., with the exception of a few scattered articles that yet remain and that will be published in her own magazine Lucifer. Her pupils are well aware that few will be found in the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H.P.B., and to her magnificent sweep of thoughts, but as she can wait to future generations for the justification of her greatness as a teacher, so can her pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.
ANNIE BESANT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTORY
( Page 1) "POWER belongs to him who knows;" this is a very old axiom. Knowledge - the first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning the real from the false - is for those only who, have freed themselves from every prejudice and conquered their human conceit and selfishness, are ready to accept every and any truth once it is demonstrated to them. Of such there are very few. The majority judge of a work according to the respective prejudices of its critics, who are guided in their turn by the popularity or unpopularity of the author, rather than by its own faults or merits. Outside the Theosophical circle, therefore, the present volume is certain to receive at the hands of the general public a still colder welcome than its two predecessors have met with. In our day no statement can hope for a fair trial, or even hearing, unless its arguments run on the line of legitimate and accepted enquiry, remaining strictly within the boundaries of official Science or orthodox Theology.
Our age is a paradoxical anomaly. It is preëminently materialistic and as preëminently pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought and progress, so called, both run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously dissimilar and yet both so popular and so very orthodox, each in its own way. He who presumes to draw a third line, as a hyphen of reconciliation between the two, has to be fully prepared for the worst. He will have his work mangled by reviewers, mocked by the sycophants of Science and Church, misquoted by his opponents, and rejected even by the pious lending libraries. The absurd misconceptions, in so-called cultured circles of society, of the ancient Wisdom-Religion (Bodhism) after the admirably clear and scientifically-presented explanations in Esoteric Buddhism, are a good proof in point. They might have served as a caution even to those Theosophists who, hardened in an almost life-long struggle in the service of their Cause, are neither timid with their pen, nor in the least appalled by dogmatic (Page 2) assumption and scientific authority. Yet, do what Theosophical writers may, neither Materialism nor doctrinal pietism will ever give their Philosophy a fair hearing. Their doctrines will be systematically rejected, and their theories denied a place even in the ranks of those scientific ephemera, the ever-shifting "working hypotheses" of our day. To the advocate of the "animalistic" theory, our cosmogenetical and anthropogenetical teachings are "fairy-tales" at best. For to those who would shirk any moral responsibility, it seems certainly more convenient to accept descent from a common simian ancestor and see a brother in a dumb, tailless baboon, than to acknowledge the fatherhood of the Pitris, the "Sons of God," and to have to recognise as a brother a starveling from the slums.
"Hold back!" shout in their turn the pietists. "You will never make of respectable church-going Christians Esoteric Buddhists!"
Nor are we, in truth, in any way anxious to attempt the metamorphosis. But this cannot, nor shall it, prevent Theosophists from saying what they have to say, especially to those who, in opposing to our doctrine Modern Science, do so not for her own fair sake, but only to ensure the success of their private hobbies and personal glorification. If we cannot prove many of our points, no more can they; yet we may show how, instead of giving historical and scientific facts - for the edification of those who, knowing less than they, look to Scientists to do their thinking and form their opinions - the efforts of most of our scholars seem solely directed to killing ancient facts, or distorting them into props to support their own special views. This will be done in no spirit of malice or even criticism, as the writer readily admits that most of those she finds fault with stand immeasurably higher in learning than herself. But great scholarship does not preclude bias and prejudice, nor is it a safeguard against self-conceit, but rather the reverse. Moreover, it is but in the legitimate defence of our own statements, i.e., the vindication of Ancient Wisdom and its great truths, that we mean to take our "great authorities" to task.
Indeed, unless the precaution of answering beforehand certain objections to the fundamental propositions in the present work be adopted - objections which are certain to be made on the authority of this, that, or another scholar concerning the Esoteric character of all the archaic and ancient works on Philosophy - our statements will be once more contradicted and even discredited. One of the main points in this Volume is to indicate in the works of the old Aryan, Greek and
One Key to all Sacred Books - (Page 3) other Philosophers of note, as well as in all the world-scriptures, the presence of a strong Esoteric allegory and symbolism. Another of the objects is to prove that the key of interpretation, as furnished by the Eastern Hindu-Buddhistic canon of Occultism - fitting as well the Christian Gospels as it does archaic Egyptian, Greek, Chaldean, Persian, and even Hebrew -Mosaic Books - must have been one common to all the nations, however divergent may have been their respective methods and exoteric "blinds." These claims are vehemently denied by some of the foremost scholars of our day. In his Edinburgh Lectures, Prof. Max Muller discarded this fundamental statement of the Theosophists by pointing to the Hindu Shastras and Pandits, who know nothing of such Esotericism. [ The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if honest, would deny that the Upanishads, and especially the Puranas, are allegorical and symbolical: nor that there still remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual existence of Mahâtmâs - initiated Yogis and Adepts - even in this age of Kali Yuga.] The learned Sanskrit scholar stated in so many words that there was no hidden meaning, no Esoteric element or "blinds," either in the Purânas or the Upanishads. Considering that the word "Upanishad" means, when translated, the "Secret Doctrine." the assertion is, to say the least, extraordinary. Sir M. Monier Williams again holds the same view with regard to Buddhism. To hear him is to regard Gautama, the Buddha, as an enemy of every pretence to Esoteric teachings. He himself never taught them! All such "pretences" to Occult learning and "magic powers" are due to the later Arhats, the subsequent followers of the "Light of Asia"! Prof. B. Jowett, again, as contemptuously passes the sponge over the "absurd" interpretations of Plato's Timaeus and the Mosaic Books by the Neoplatonists. There is not a breath of the Oriental (Gnostic) spirit of Mysticism in Plato's Dialogues, the Regius Professor of Greek tells us, nor any approach to Science, either. Finally, to cap the climax, Prof. Sayce, the Assyriologist, although he does not deny the actual presence, in the Assyrian tablets and cuneiform literature, of a hidden meaning -
"Many of the sacred texts . . . . so written as to be intelligible only to the initiated"-
yet insists that the "keys and glosses" thereof are now in the hands of the Assyriologists. The modern scholars, he affirms, have in their possession clues to the interpretation of the Esoteric Records.
"Which even the initiated priests [of Chaldaea] did not possess."
(Page 4) Thus, in the scholarly appreciation of our modern Orientalists and Professors, Science was in its infancy in the days of the Egyptian and Chaldean Astronomers. Pânini, the greatest Grammarian in the world, was unacquainted with the art of writing. So was the Lord Buddha, and everyone else in India until 300 B.C. The grossest ignorance reigned in the days of the Indian Rishis, and even in those of Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato. Theosophists must indeed be superstitious ignoramuses to speak as they do, in the face of such learned evidence to the contrary!
Truly it looks as if, since the world's creation, there has been but one age of real knowledge on earth - the present age. In the misty twilight, in the grey dawn of history, stand the pale shadows of the old Sages of world renown. They were hopelessly groping for the correct meaning of their own Mysteries, the spirit whereof has departed without revealing itself to the Hierophants, and has remained latent in space until the advent of the initiates of Modern Science and Research. The noontide brightness of knowledge has only now arrived at the "Know-All," who, basking in the dazzling sun of induction, busies himself with his Penelopeian task of "working hypotheses," and loudly asserts his rights to universal knowledge. Can anyone wonder, then, that according to present views the learning of the ancient Philosopher, and even sometimes that of his direct successors in the past centuries, has ever been useless to the world and valueless to himself? For, as explained repeatedly in so many words, while the Rishis and the Sages of old have walked far over the arid fields of myth and superstition, the mediaeval Scholar, and even the average eighteenth century Scientist, have always been more or less cramped by their "supernatural" religion and beliefs. True, it is generally conceded that some ancient and also mediaeval Scholars, such as Pythagoras, Plato, Paracelsus, and Roger Bacon, followed by a host of glorious names, had indeed left not a few landmarks over precious mines of Philosophy and unexpected lodes of Physical Science. But then the actual excavation of these, the smelting of the gold and silver, and the cutting of the precious jewels they contain, are all due to the patient labours of the modern man of Science. And it is not to be the unparalleled genius of the latter that the ignorant and hitherto-deluded world owes a correct knowledge of the real nature of the Kosmos, of the true origin of the universe and man, as revealed in the automatic and mechanical theories of the Physicists, in accordance with strictly scientific Philosophy?
Assumptions Have to be Proven - (Page 5) Before our cultured era, Science was but a name, Philosophy a delusion and a snare. According to the modest claims of contemporary authority on genuine Science and Philosophy, the Tree of Knowledge has only now sprung from the dead weeds of superstition, as a beautiful butterfly emerges from an ugly grub. We have, therefore, nothing for which to thank our forefathers. The Ancients have at best prepared and fertilised the soil; it is the Moderns who have planted the seeds of knowledge and reared the lovely plants called blank negation and sterile agnosticism.
Such, however, is not the view taken by Theosophists. They repeat what was stated twenty years ago. It is not sufficient to speak of the "untenable conceptions of an uncultured past" (Tyndall): of the "parler enfantin" of the Vaidic poets (Max Muller); of the "absurdities" of the Neoplatonists (Jowett); and of the ignorance of the Chaldaeo-Assyrian initiated Priests with regard to their own symbols, when compared with the knowledge thereon of the British Orientalist (Sayce). Such assumptions have to be proven by something more solid than the mere word of these scholars. For no amount of boastful arrogance can hide the intellectual quarries out of which the representations of so many modern Philosophers and Scholars have been carved. How many of the most distinguished European Scientists have derived honour and credit for the mere dressing-up of the ideas of these old Philosophers, whom they are ever ready to disparage, is left to an impartial posterity to say. Thus it does seem not altogether untrue, as stated in Isis Unveiled, to say of certain Orientalists and Scholars of dead languages, that they will allow their boundless conceit and self-opinionatedness to run away with their logic and reasoning powers, rather than concede to the ancient Philosophers the knowledge of anything the modern do not know.
As part of this work treats of the Initiates and the secret knowledge imparted during the Mysteries, the statements of those who, in spite of the fact that Plato was an Initiate, maintain that no hidden Mysticism is to be discovered in his works, have to be first examined. Too many of the present scholars, Greek and Sanskrit, are but too apt to forego facts in favour of their own preconceived theories based on personal prejudice. They conveniently forget, at every opportunity, not only the numerous changes in language, but also that the allegorical style in the writings of old Philosophers and the secretiveness of the Mystics had their raison d'être; that both the pre-Christian and the post-Christian (Page 6)classical writers - the great majority at all events - were under the sacred obligation never to divulge the solemn secrets communicated to them in the sanctuaries; and that this alone is sufficient to sadly mislead their translators and profane critics. But these critics will admit nothing of the kind, as will presently be seen.
For over twenty-two centuries everyone who has read Plato has been aware that, like most of the other Greek Philosophers of note, he had been initiated; that therefore, being tied down by the Sodalian Oath, he could speak of certain things only in veiled allegories. His reverence for the Mysteries is unbounded; he openly confesses that he writes "enigmatically," and we see him take the greatest precautions to conceal the true meaning of his words. Every time the subject touches the greater secrets of Oriental Wisdom - the cosmogony of the universe, or the ideal preexisting world - Plato shrouds his Philosophy in the profoundest darkness. His Timaeus is so confused that no one but an Initiate can understand the hidden meaning, As already said in Isis Unveiled:
The speculations of Plato in the Banquet on the creation, or rather the evolution, of primordial men, and the essay on cosmogony in the Timaeus, must be taken allegorically if we accept them at all. It is this hidden Pythagorean meaning in Timaeus, Cratylus, and Parmenides, and a few other triologies and dialogues, that the Neoplatonists ventured to expound, as far as the theurgical vow of secresy would allow them. The Pythagoran doctrine that God is the Universal Mind diffused through all things, and the dogma of the soul's immortality, are the leading features in these apparently incongruous teachings. His piety and the great veneration he felt for the Mysteries are sufficient warrant that Plato would not allow his indiscretion to get the better of that deep sense of responsibility which is felt by every Adept. "Constantly perfecting himself in perfect Mysteries a man in them alone becomes truly perfect," says he in the Phaedrus.
He took no pains to conceal his displeasure that the Mysteries had become less secret than formerly. Instead of profaning them by putting them within the reach of the multitude, he would have guarded them with jealous care against all but the most earnest and worthy of his disciples. [ This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes: "You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its contents." (Plato. Ep., II. 312 Cory. Ancient Fragments. p.304 ] While mentioning the Gods on every page, his monotheism is unquestionable, for the whole thread of his discourse indicates that by the term "God" he means a class of beings lower in the scale than Deities, and but one grade higher than men. Even Josephus perceived and acknowledged this fact, despite the natural prejudice of his race.
The Spirit of Plato's Teaching - (Page 7) In his famous onslaught upon Apion, this historian says;"Those, however, among the Greeks who philosophized in accordance with truth were not ignorant of anything, . . . nor did they fail to perceive the chilling superficialities of the mythical allegories, on which account they justly despised them. . . . By which thing Plato, being moved, says it is not necessary to admit any one of the other poets into ‘the Commonwealth,' and he dismisses Homer blandly, after having crowned him and pouring unguent upon him, in order that indeed he should not destroy by his myths, the orthodox belief in respecting one God." [ Isis Unveiled, i. 287, 288.]
And this is the "God" of every Philosopher, God infinite and impersonal. All this and much more, which there is no room here to quote, leads one to the undeniable certitude that (a) as all the Sciences and Philosophies were in the hands of the temple Hierophants, Plato, as initiated by them, must have known them; and (b), that logical inference alone is amply sufficient to justify anyone in regarding Plato's writings as allegories and "dark sayings," veiling truths which he had no right to divulge.
This established, how comes it that one of the best Greek scholars in England, Prof. Jowett, the modern translator of Plato's works, seeks to demonstrate that none of the Dialogues - including even the Timaeus - have any element of Oriental Mysticism about them? Those who can discern the true spirit of Plato's Philosophy will hardly be convinced by the arguments which the Master of Balliol College lays before his readers. "Obscure and repulsive" to him, the Timaeus may certainly be; but it is as certain that this obscurity does not arise, as the Professor tells his public, "in the infancy of physical science," but rather in its days of secresy; not "out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions," or "out of the desire to conceive the whole of Nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts." [ The Dialogues of Plato, translated by B.Jowett. Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, 111 5z3.] For Mathematics and Geometry were the backbone of Occult cosmogony, hence of "Theology," and the physiological notions of the ancient Sages are being daily verified by Science in our age; at least, to those who know to read and understand ancient Esoteric works. The "knowledge of the parts" avails us little, if this knowledge only leads us the more to ignorance of the Whole, or the "nature and the reason of the Universal," as Plato called Deity, and causes us to blunder most egregiously because of our boasted inductive methods.
(Page 8) Plato may have been "incapable of induction, or generalization in the modern sense"; [ Op. cit., p.561 ] he may have been ignorant also, of the circulation of the blood, which, we are told, "was absolutely unknown to him," [ Op. cit., p.591 ] but then, there is naught to disprove that he knew what blood is - and this is more than any Physiologist or Biologist can claim nowadays.
Though a wider and far more generous margin for knowledge is allowed the "physical philosopher" by Prof. Jowett than by nearly any other modern commentator and critic, nevertheless, his criticism so considerably outweighs his laudation, that it may be as well to quote his own words, to show clearly his bias. Thus he says:
To bring sense under the control of reason; to find some way through the labyrinth or chaos of appearances, either the highway or mathematics, or more devious paths suggested by the analogy of man with the world and of the world with man; to see that all things have a cause and are tending towards an end - this is the spirit of the ancient physical philosopher. [ This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient "physical philosopher" many cubits higher than his modern "physical" confrère, since the ultima thule of the latter is to lead mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at all - not an intelligent one at all events - and that they have sprung into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical is left to the impartial reader to decide.] But we neither appreciate the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. For he is hovering between matter and mind; he is under the dominion of abstractions; his impressions are taken almost at random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but not the objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings into juxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing between them.
The last proposition but one must evidently be distasteful to the modern "physical philosopher," who sees the "objects" before him, but fails to see the light of the Universal Mind, which reveals them, i.e., who proceeds in a diametrically opposite way. Therefore the learned Professor comes to the conclusion that the ancient Philosopher, whom he now judges from Plato's Timaeus, must have acted in a decidedly unphilosophical and even irrational way. For:
He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and from ideas and numbers to persons; [ Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist, will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas, numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, "is the dominant and self-produced bond of the eternal continuance of things." Alone the modern scholar remains blind to the grand truth ] he confuses subject and object, first and final causes, and in dreaming of geometrical figures is lost in a flux of sense.
Self-Contradiction of the Critic - (Page 9) [ Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern. For he only "confuses . . . first and final causes" (which confusion is denied by those who know the spirit of the ancient scholarship), whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science "powerless" to solve a single one of the final problems of Nature and "disciplined [read, modern materialistic ], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problems " of the world of matter. He even doubts whether the men of present Science possess "the intellectual elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of Nature." But for Plato and his disciples, the lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract ones: the higher abstract ones: the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a geometrical beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the great universal archaeus (Anima Mundi), is self-moving, and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.] And now an effort of mind is required on our parts in order to understand his double language, or to apprehend the twilight character of the knowledge and the genius of ancient philosophers which, under such conditions [?], seems by a divine power in many instances to have anticipated the truth. [ Op. cit., page 523.]
Whether "such conditions" imply those of ignorance and mental stolidity in "the genius of ancient philosophers" or something else, we do not know. But what we do know is that the meaning of the sentences we have italicized is perfectly clear. Whether the Regius Professor of Greek believes or disbelieves in a hidden sense of geometrical figures and of the Esoteric "jargon," he nevertheless admits the presence of a "double language" in the writings of these Philosophers. Thence he admits a hidden meaning, which must have had an interpretation. Why, then, does he flatly contradict his own statement on the very next page? And why should he deny to the Timaeus - that preëminently Pythagorean (mystic) Dialogue - any Occult meaning and take such pains to convince his readers that
The influence which the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is partly due to a misunderstanding.
The following quotation from his Introduction is in direct contradiction with the paragraph which precedes it, as above quoted:
In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and out of them they dictated doctrines quite at variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses, [ Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who wrote nothing: or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo Judaeus. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years B.C), and is credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the "revealed" Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of the Commentaries on the Books of Moses, was not Aristobulus, the sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Judaeus - since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.] (Page 10) they seemed to find in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word, the Church . . . and the Neo-Platonists had a method of interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words. They were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another, or between the serious thoughts of Plato and his passing fancies. [ Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very fantastic writer.] . . . [But] there is no danger of the modern commentators on the Timaeus falling into the absurdity of the Neo-Platonists.
No danger whatever of course, for the simple reason that the modern commentators have never had the key to Occult interpretations. And before another word is said in defence of Plato and the Neoplatonists, the learned master of Balliol College ought to be respectfully asked: What does, or can he know of the Esoteric canon of interpretation? By the term "canon" is here meant that key which was communicated orally from "mouth to ear" by the Master to the disciple, or by the Hierophant to the candidate for initiation; this from time immemorial throughout a long series of ages, during which the inner - not public - Mysteries were the most sacred institution of every land. Without such a key no correct interpretation of either the Dialogues of Plato nor of any Scripture, from the Vedas to Homer, from the Zend Avesta to the Mosaic Books, is possible. How then can the Rev. Dr. Jowett know that the interpretations made by the Neoplatonists of the various sacred books of the nations were "absurdities"? Where, again, has he found an opportunity of studying these "interpretations"? History shows that all such works were destroyed by the Christian Church Fathers and their fanatical catechumens, wherever they were found. To say that such men as Ammonius, a genius and a saint, whose learning and holy life earned for him the title of Theodidaktos ("God-taught"), such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus, were "incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another, or between the serious thoughts of Plato and his fancies, " is to assume an untenable position for a Scholar. It amounts to saying that, (a) scores of the most famous Philosophers, the greatest Scholars and Sages of Greece and of the Roman Empire were dull fools, and (b) that all the other commentators, lovers of Greek Philosophy, some of them the acutest intellects of the age - who do not agree with Dr. Jowett - are also fools and no better than those whom they admire. The patronising tone of the last above-quoted passage is modulated with the most naive conceit, remarkable even in our age of self-glorification and mutual admiration cliques.
The Character of Ammonius Saccas - (Page 11) We have to compare the Professor's views with those of some other scholars.
Says Prof. Alexander Wilder of New York, one of the best Platonists of the day, speaking of Ammonius, the founder of the Neoplatonic School:
His deep spiritual intuition, his extensive learning, his familiarity with the Christian Fathers, Pantaenus, Clement, and Athenagoras, and with the most erudite philosophers of the time, all fitted him for the labour which he performed so thoroughly. [ The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion.] He was successful in drawing to his views the greatest scholars and public men of the Roman Empire, who had little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits or superstitious observances. The results of his ministration are perceptible at the present day in every country of the Christian world; every prominent system of doctrine now bearing the marks of his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries among the moderns; and even Judaism . . . has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by the "God-taught" Alexandrian . . . He was a man of rare learning and endowments, of blameless life and amiable disposition. His almost superhuman ken and many excellencies won for him the title of Theodidaktos; but he followed the modest example of Pythagoras, and only assumed the title of Philalethian, or lover of truth. [ New Platonism and Alchemy, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7.4.]
It would be happy for truth and fact were our modern scholars to follow as modestly in the steps of their great predecessors. But not they - Philalethians!
Moreover, we know that:
Like Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus himself, [ It is well-known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius had renounced the tenets of the Church - Eusebius and Jerome notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest in stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic Philosophy was as "pagan" as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an out-and-out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact, contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty.] Ammonius committed nothing to writing. [ Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called De Consensu Moysis et Jesu, is mentioned by the same "trustworthy" Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesaraea, and the friend of the Christian Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known of this pseudo-work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it (Vir. Illust.,55: and Euseb., H.E.., vi.19). The other spurious production is called the Diatesseron (or the "Harmony of the Gospels"). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly, probably, as later scholars attributed the Diatesseron to Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on its "esoteric" interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neoplatonic interpretations as "absurdities"?] Instead he . . . communicated his most (Page 12) important doctrines to persons duly instructed and disciplined, imposing on them the obligations of secresy, as was done before him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and in the Mysteries. Except a few treatises of his disciples we have only the declarations of his adversaries from which to ascertain what he actually taught.[Op. cit., p.7.]
It is from the biased statements of such "adversaries." probably, that the learned Oxford translator of Plato's Dialogues came to the conclusion that:
That which was truly great and truly characteristic of him [Plato], his effort to realise and connect abstractions, was not understood by them [the Neoplatonists] at all [?].
He states, contemptuously enough for the ancient methods of intellectual analysis, that:
In the present day . . . an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himself and by the contemporary history of thought. [ Op. cit., iii 524.]
This is like saying that the ancient Greek canon of proportion (if ever found), and the Athena Promachus of Phidias, have to be interpreted in the present day from the contemporary history of architecture and sculpture, from the Albert Hall and Memorial Monument, and the hideous Madonnas in crinolines sprinkled over the fair face of Italy. Prof. Jowett remarks that "mysticism is not criticism." No; but neither is criticism always fair and sound judgement.
La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile.
And such "art" our critic of the Neoplatonists - his Greek scholarship notwithstanding - lacks from a to z. Nor has he, very evidently, the key to the true spirit of the Mysticism of Pythagoras and Plato, since he denies even in the Timaeus an element of Oriental Mysticism, and seeks to show Greek Philosophy reacting upon the East, forgetting that the truth is the exact reverse; that it is "the deeper and more pervading spirit of Orientalism" that had - through Pythagoras and his own initiation into the Mysteries - penetrated into the very depths of Plato's soul.
But Dr. Jowett does not see this. Nor is he prepared to admit that anything good or rational - in accordance with the "contemporary history of thought" - could ever come out of that Nazareth of the Pagan Mysteries; nor even that there is anything to interpret of a hidden nature in the Timaeus or any other Dialogue. For him,
The so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of his imperfect knowledge [ "Imperfect knowledge" of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of the modern ‘working hypotheses" - as ignorant as our immediate posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their turn after exploding join the "great majority" - is perhaps a blessing in disguise.] and high aspirations, and is the growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from poetry and mythology.[ Op.cit., p.524.]
Plato a Follower of Pythagoras - (Page 13) Among several other equally erroneous propositions, it is especially the assumptions (a) that Plato was entirely free from any element of Eastern Philosophy in his writings, and (b) that every modern scholar, without being a Mystic and a Kabalist himself, can pretend to judge of ancient Esotericism - which we mean to combat. To do this we have to produce more authoritative statements than our own would be, and bring the evidence of other scholars as great as Dr. Jowett, if not greater, specialists in their subjects, moreover, to bear on and destroy the arguments of the Oxford Regius Professor of Greek.
That Plato was undeniably an ardent admirer and follower of Pythagoras no one will deny. And it is equally undeniable, as Matter has it, that Plato had inherited on the one hand his doctrines, and on the other had drawn his wisdom, from the same sources as the Samian Philosopher. [ I'Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme, by M.J. Matter, Professor of the Royal Academy of Strasburg. "It is in Pythagoras and Plato that we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism." he says. (Vol.i. pp.48 and 50.)] And the doctrines of Pythagoras are Oriental to the backbone, and even Brâhmanical; for this great Philosopher ever pointed to the far East as the source whence he derived his information and his Philosophy, and Colebrooke shows that Plato makes the same profession in his Epistles, and says that he has taken his teachings "from ancient and sacred doctrines." [ Asiat. Trans.,i. 579.] Furthermore, the ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato coincide too well with the systems of India and with Zoroastrianism to admit any doubt of their origin by anyone who has some acquaintance with these systems. Again:
Pantaenus, Athenagoras, and Clement were thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the Oriental systems. [ New Platonism and Alchemy. p.4.]
The history of Pantaenus and his contemporaries may give the key to the Platonic, and at the same time Oriental, elements that predominate so strikingly in the Gospels over the Jewish Scriptures.
SECTION I
Preliminary Survey
(Page 14) INITIATES who have acquired powers and transcendental knowledge can be traced back to the Fourth Root Race from our own age. As the multiplicity of the subjects to be dealt with prohibits the introduction of such a historical chapter, which, however historical in fact and truth, would be rejected a priori as blasphemy and fable by both Church and Science - we shall only touch on the subject. Science strikes out, at its own sweet will and fancy, dozens of names of ancient heroes, simply because there is too great an element of myth in their histories; the Church insists that biblical patriarchs shall be regarded as historical personages, and terms her seven "Star-angels" the "historical channels and agents of the Creator." Both are right, since each finds a strong party to side with it. Mankind is at best a sorry herd of Panurgian sheep, following blindly the leader that happens to suit it at the moment. Mankind - the majority at any rate - hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks, and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction. Give it an unfamiliar problem to solve, and if its mathematicians, not liking its looks, refuse to deal with it, the crowd, unfamiliar with mathematics, will stare at the unknown quantity, and getting hopelessly entangled in sundry x's and y's, will turn round, trying to rend to pieces the uninvited disturber of its intellectual Nirvana. This may, perhaps, account for the ease and extraordinary success enjoyed by the Roman Church in her conversions of nominal Protestants and Free-thinkers, whose name is legion, but who have never gone to the trouble of thinking for themselves on these most important and tremendous problems of man's inner nature.
And yet, if the evidence of facts, the records preserved in History, and the uninterrupted anathemas of the Church against, "Black Magic" and Magicians of the accursed race of Cain, are not to be heeded, our efforts will prove very puny indeed. When, for nearly two millenniums a body of men has never ceased to lift its voice against Black Magic, the inference ought to be irrefutable that if Black Magic exists as a real fact, there must be somewhere its counterpart - White Magic.
The Protectors of China - (Page 15) False silver coins could have no existence if there were no genuine silver money. Nature is dual in whatever she attempts, and this ecclesiastical persecution ought alone to have opened the eyes of the public long ago. However much travellers may be ready to pervert every fact with regard to abnormal powers with which certain men are gifted in "heathen" countries; however eager they may be to put false constructions on such facts, and - to use an old proverb - "to call white swan black goose," and to kill it, yet the evidence of even Roman Catholic missionaries ought to be taken into consideration, once they swear in a body to certain facts. Nor is it because they choose to see Satanic agency in manifestations of a certain kind, that their evidence as to the existence of such powers can be disregarded. For what do they say of China? Those missionaries who have lived in the country for long years, and have seriously studied every fact and belief that may prove an obstacle to their success in making conversions, and who have become familiar with every exoteric rite of both the official religion and sectarian creeds - all swear to the existence of a certain body of men, whom no one can reach but the Emperor and a select body of high officials. A few years ago, before the war in Tonkin, the archbishop in Pekin, on the report of some hundreds of missionaries and Christians, wrote to Rome the identical story that had been reported twenty-five years before, and had been widely circulated in clerical papers. They had fathomed, it was said, the mystery of certain official deputations, sent at times of danger by the Emperor and ruling powers to their Sheu and Kiuay, as they are called among the people. These Sheu and Kiuay, they explained, were the Genii of the mountains, endowed with the most miraculous powers. They are regarded as the protectors of China, by the "ignorant" masses; as the incarnation of Satanic power by the good and "learned" missionaries.
The Sheu and Kiuay are men belonging to another state of being to that of the ordinary man, or to the state they enjoyed while they were clad in their bodies. They are disembodied spirits, ghosts and larvae, living, nevertheless, in objective form on earth, and dwelling in the fastnesses of mountains, inaccessible to all but those whom they permit to visit them. [ This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. "Annales de la Propagation de la Foi".]
(Page 16) In Tibet certain ascetics are also called Lha, Spirits, by those with whom they do not choose to communicate. The Sheu and Kiuay, who enjoy the highest consideration of the Emperor and Philosophers, and of Confucianists who believe in no "Spirits," are simply Lohans - Adepts who live in the greatest solitude in their unknown retreats.
But both Chinese exclusiveness and Nature seem to have allied themselves against European curiosity and - as it is sincerely regarded in Tibet - desecration. Marco Polo, the famous traveller, was perhaps the European who ventured farthest into the interior of these countries. What was said of him in 1876 may now be repeated.
The district of the Gobi wilderness, and, in fact, the whole area of Independent Tartary and Tibet is carefully guarded against foreign intrusion. Those who are permitted to traverse it are under the particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the chief authority, and are in duty bound to convey no intelligence respecting places and persons to the outside world. But for this restriction, many might contribute to these pages accounts of exploration, adventure, and discovery that would be read with interest. The time will come, sooner or later, when the dreadful sand of the desert will yield up its long-buried secrets, and then there will indeed be unlooked-for mortifications for our modern vanity.
"The people of Pashai," [ The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir, as the translator and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule) believes (i.x75).] says Marco Polo, the daring traveller of the thirteenth century, "are great adepts in sorceries and the diabolic arts." And his learned editor adds: "This Paschai, or Udyana, was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief apostles of Lamaism, i.e., of Tibetan Buddhism, and a great master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed in Udyana in old times, were probably strongly tinged with Sivaitic magic, and the Tibetans still regard the locality as the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft."
The "old times" are just like the "modern times"; nothing is changed as to magical practices except that they have become still more esoteric and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts increases in proportion to the traveller's curiosity. Hiouen-Thsang says of the inhabitants: "The men . . . are fond of study, but pursue it with no ardour. The science of magical formulae has become a regular professional business with them." [ Voyage des Pèlerins Bouddhistes. Vol.1.. Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen-Thsang, etc., traduit du chinois en francais, par Stanislas Julien.] We will not contract the venerable Chinese pilgrim on this point, and are willing to admit that in the seventh century some people made "a professional business: of magic, so, also, do some people now, but certainly not the true adepts. Moreoever, in that century, Buddhism had hardly penetrated into Tibet, and its races were steeped in the sorceries of the Bhon, - the pre-lamaic religion. It is not Hiouen-Thsang, the pious, courageous man who risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving Buddh's shadown in the cave of Peshwur, who would have accused the good lamas and monkish thaumaturgists of "making a professional business" of showing it to travellers.
The A B C Of Magic -
(Page 17) The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King Prasenajit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles, must have been ever-present to the mind of Hiouen-Thsang. "Great king," said Gautama, "I do not teach the law to my pupils, telling them, ‘Go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brahmans and householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers, miracles greater than any man can perform.' I tell them when I teach them the law, ‘Live ye saints, hiding your good works, and showing your sins.' "
Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and recorded by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and Tibet, Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must have had "at their command the whole encyclopaedia of modern Spiritualists." Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of Laotseu [ Lao-tse the Chinese philosopher.] and their divinities in the air, and of making a pencil write answers to questions without anybody touching it." [ The Book of Ser Marco Polo, i.3x8.]
The former invocations pertain to the religious mysteries of their sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake of gain, they are considered sorcery, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The latter art, that of making a pencil write without contact, was known and practised in China and other countries before the Christian era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.
When Hiouen-Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha, it was not to "professional magicians" that he resorted, but to the power of his own soul-invocation; the power of prayer, faith, and contemplation. All was dark and dreary near the cavern in which the miracle was alleged to sometimes take place. Hiouen-Thsang entered and began his devotions. He made one hundred salutations, but neither saw nor heard anything. Then, thinking himself too sinful, he cried bitterly and despaired. But as he was about to give up all hope, he perceived on the eastern wall a feeble light, but it disappeared. He renewed his prayers, full of hope this time, and again he saw the light, which flashed and disappeared again. After this he made a solemn vow: he would not leave the cave till he had the rapture to at last see the shadow of the "Venerable of the Age." He had to wait longer after this, for only after two hundred prayers was the dark cave suddenly "bathed in light, and the shadow of Buddha, of a brilliant white colour, rose majestically on the wall, as when the clouds suddenly open, and all at once display the marvellous image of the ‘Mountain of Light.' A dazzling splendour lighted up the features of the divine countenance. Hiouen-Thsang was lost in contemplation and wonder, and would not turn his eyes away from the sublime and incomparable object." Hiouen-Thsang adds in his own diary, See-yu-kee, that it is only when man prays with sincere faith, and if he has received from above a hidden impression, that he sees the shadow clearly, but he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time (Max Muller, Buddhist Pilgrims.)
From one end to the other the country is full of mystics, religious philosophers, Buddhist saints and magicians. Belief in a spiritual world, full of invisible beings who, on certain occasions, appear to mortals objectively, is universal. "According (Page 18) to the belief of the nations of Central Asia," remarks I. J. Schmidt, "the earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing atmosphere, are filled with spiritual beings, which exercise an influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of organic and inorganic nature. . . . Especially are deserts and other wild and uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as the chief abode or rendez-vous of evil spirits. And hence the steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sand desert of the Gobi, have been looked on as the dwelling place of malignant beings, from the days of hoary antiquity."
The treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenae, have awakened popular cupidity, and the eyes of adventurous speculators are being turned toward the localities where the wealth of ancient peoples is supposed to be buried, in crypt or cave, or beneath sand or alluvial deposit. Around no other locality, not even Peru, hang so many traditions as around the Gobi Desert. In independent Tartary this howling waste of shifting sand was once, if report speaks correctly, the seat of one of the richest empires the world ever saw. Beneath the surface is said to lie such wealth in gold, jewels, statuary, arms, utensils, and all that indicates civilization, luxury, and fine arts, as no existing capital of Christendom can show today. The Gobi sand moves regularly from east to west before terrific gales that blow continually. Occasionally some of the hidden treasures are uncovered, but not a native dare touch them, for the whole district is under the ban of a mighty spell. Death would be the penalty. Bahti -hideous, but faithful gnomes - guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric people, awaiting the day when the revolution of cyclic periods shall again cause their story to be known for the instruction of mankind.[ Isis Unveiled, i. 599-601, 603, 598.]
The above is purposely quoted from Isis Unveiled to refresh the reader's memory. One of the cyclic periods has just been passed and we may not have to wait to the end of Maha Kalpa to have revealed something of the history of the mysterious desert, in spite of the Bahti, and even the Rakshasas of India, not less "hideous." No tales or fictions were given in our earlier volumes, their chaotic state notwithstanding, to which chaos the writer, entirely free from vanity, confesses publicly and with many apologies.
It is now generally admitted that, from time immemorial, the distant East, India especially, was the land of knowledge and of every kind of learning. Yet there is none to whom the origin of all her Arts and Sciences has been so much denied as to the land of the primitive Aryas. From Architecture down to the Zodiac, every Science worthy of the name was imported by the Greeks, the mysterious Yavanas - agreeably with the decision of the Orientalists! Therefore, it is but logical that even the knowledge of Occult Science should be refused to India, since of its general practice in that country less is known than in the case of any other ancient people.
Magic as old as man - (Page 19) It is so, simply because:
With the Hindus it was, and is, more esoteric, if possible, than it was even among the Egyptian priests. So sacred was it deemed that its existence was only half admitted, and it was only practised in public emergencies. It was more than a religious matter, for it was [and is still] considered divine. The Egyptian hierophants, notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure morality, could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical Gymnosophists, either in holiness of life or miraculous powers developed in them by the supernatural abjuration of everything earthly. By those who knew them well they were held in still greater reverence than the magians of Chaldaea. "Denying themselves the simplest comforts of life, they dwelt in woods, and led the life of the most secluded hermits," [ Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii.6.] while their Egyptian brothers at least congregated together. Notwithstanding the slur thrown on all who practised magic and divination, history has proclaimed them as possessing the greatest secrets in medical knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its practice. Numerous are the volumes preserved in Hindu Mathams, in which are recorded the proofs of their learning. To attempt to say whether these Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in India, or whether they only practised what has passed to them as an inheritance from the earliest Rishis [ The Rishis - the first group of seven in number lived in days preceding the Vedic period. They are now known as Sages and held in reverence like demigods. But they may now be shown as something more than merely mortal Philosophers. There are other groups of ten, twelve and even twenty-one in number. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brahmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish Bible The Brahmans claim to descend directly from the Rishis.] - the seven primeval sages - would be regarded as mere speculation by exact scholars.[ Isis Unveiled, i. 90.]
Nevertheless, this must be attempted. In Isis Unveiled, all that could be stated about Magic was set down in the guise of hints; and thus, owing to the great amount of material scattered over two large volumes, much of its importance was lost upon the reader, while it still more failed to draw his attention on account of the faulty arrangement. But hints may now grow into explanations. One can never repeat it too often - Magic is as old as man. It cannot any longer be called charlantry or hallucination, when its lesser branches - such as mesmerism, now miscalled "hypnotism," "thought reading," "action by suggestion," and what not else, only to avoid calling it by its right and legitimate name - are being so seriously investigated by the most famous Biologists and Physiologists of both Europe and America. Magic is indissolubly blended with Religion of every country and is (Page 20) inseparable from its origin. It is as impossible for History to name the time when it was not, as that of the epoch when it sprang into existence, unless the doctrines preserved by the Initiates are taken into consideration. Nor can Science ever solve the problem of the origin of man if it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world, and refuses from the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the key to Universal Symbology. Whenever a writer has tried to connect the first foundation of Magic with a particular country or some historical event or character, further research has shown his hypothesis to be groundless. There is a most lamentable contradiction among the Symbologists on this point. Some would have it that Odin, the Scandinavian priest and monarch, originated the practice of Magic some 70 years B.C.. although it is spoken of repeatedly in the Bible. But as it was proven that the mysterious rites of the priestesses Valas (Voilers) were greatly anterior to Odin's age, [ See Munter "On the most Ancient Religions of the North before Odin.' Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France. ii. 230.] then Zoroaster came in for an attempt on the ground that he was the founder of Magian rites; but Ammianus Marcellinus, Pliny and Arnobius, with other ancient Historians, have shown that Zoroaster was but a reformer of Magic as practised by the Chaldaeans and Egyptians, and not at all its founder. [ Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi.6.]
Who, then, of those who have consistently turned their faces away from Occultism and even Spiritualism, as being "unphilosophical" and therefore unworthy of scientific thought, has a right to say that he has studied the ancients; or that, if he has studied them, he has understood all they have said? Only those who claim to be wiser than their generation, who think that they know all that the Ancients knew, and thus, knowing far more today, fancy that they are entitled to laugh at their ancient simple-mindedness and superstition; those, who imagine they have discovered a great secret by declaring the ancient royal sarcophagus, now empty of its King Initiate, to be a "corn-bin," and the Pyramid that contained it, a granary, perhaps a wine-cellar! [ "The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science: Herodotus informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But Herodotus did not tell all, although he knew that the real purpose of the pyramid was very different from that which he assigns to it. Were it not for his religious scruples, he might have added that, externally, it symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illustrated also the principles of geometry, mathematics, astrology and astronomy.]
The Tree of Knowledge - (Page 21) Modern society, on the authority of some men of Science, calls Magic charlatantry. But there are eight hundred millions on the face of the globe who believe in it to this day; there are said to be twenty millions of perfectly sane and often very intelligent men and woman, members of that same society, who believe in its phenomena under the name of Spiritualism. The whole ancient world, with its Scholars and Philosophers, its Sages and Prophets, believed in it. Where is the country in which it was not practised? At what age was it banished, even from our own country? In the New World as in the Old Country ( the latter far younger than the former), the Science of Sciences was known and practised from the remotest antiquity. The Mexicans had their Initiates, their Priest-Hierophants and Magicians, and their crypts of Initiation. Of the two statues exhumed in the Pacific States, one represents a Mexican Adept, in the posture prescribed for the Hindu ascetic, and the other an Aztec Priestess, in a head-gear which might be taken from the head of an Indian Goddess; while the "Guatemalan Medal" exhibits the "Tree of Knowledge" - with its hundreds of eyes and ears, symbolical of seeing and hearing - encircled by the "Serpent of Wisdom" whispering into the ear of the sacred bird.) Bernard Diaz de Castilla, a follower of Cortez, gives some idea of the extraordinary refinement, intelligence and civilization, and also of the magic arts of the people whom the Spaniards conquered by brute force. Their pyramid are those of Egypt, built according to the same secret canon of proportion as those of the Pharaohs, and the Aztecs appear to have derived their civilization and religion in more than one way from the same source as the Egyptians and, before these, the Indians. Among all these three peoples arcane Natural Philosophy, or Magic, was cultivated to the highest degree.
That it was natural, not supernatural, and that the Ancients so regarded it, is shown by what Lucian says of the "laughing Philosopher," Democritus, who, he tells his readers,
Believed in no [miracles] . . . but applied himself to discover the method by which the theurgists could produce them; in a word, his philosophy brought him to the conclusion that magic was entirely confined to the application and the imitation of the laws and the works of nature.
[Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were performed the Mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the initiation scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry sarcophagus, which Professor Piazzi Smith, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, degrades into a corn-bin, was the baptismal font, upon emerging from which, the neophyte was ‘born again,' and became an adept.' (Isis Unveiled. i. 518, 519.)]
(Page 22) Who then can still call the Magic of the Ancients "superstition"?
In this respect the opinion of Democritus is of the greatest importance to us, since the Magi left by Xerxes, at Abdera, were his instructors, and he had studied magic, moreover, for a considerable time with the Egyptian priests. [ Diog. Laert., in "Democrit. Vit." ] For nearly ninety years of the one hundred and nine of his life, this great philosopher had made experiments, and noted them down in a book, which, according to Petronius, [ Satyric, ix. 3.] treated of nature - facts that he had verified himself. And we find him not only disbelieving in and utterly rejecting miracles, but asserting that every one of those that were authenticated by eye-witnesses, had, and could have taken place, for all, even the most incredible, were produced according to the "hidden laws of nature." [ Pliny, Hist. Nat.]. . . Add to this that Greece, the "later cradle of the arts and sciences," and India, cradle of religions, were, and one of them still is, devoted to its study and practice - and who shall venture to discredit its dignity as a study, and its profundity as a science? [ Isis Unveiled, I. 512.]
No true Theosophist will ever do so. For, as a member of our great Oriental body, he knows indubitably that the Secret Doctrine of the East contains the Alpha and the Omega of Universal Science; that in its obscure texts, under the luxuriant, though perhaps too exuberant, growth of allegorical Symbolism, lie concealed the corner, and the key-stones of all ancient and modern knowledge. That Stone, brought down by the Divine Builder, is now rejected by the too-human workman, and this because, in his lethal materiality, man has lost every recollection, not only of his holy childhood, but of his very adolescence, when he was one of the Builders himself; when "the morning stars sang together, and the Sons of God shouted for joy." after they had laid the measures for the foundations of the earth - to use the deeply significant and poetical language of Job, the Arabian Initiate. But those who are still able to make room in their innermost selves for the Divine Ray, and who accept, therefore, the data of the Secret Sciences in good faith and humility, they know well that it is in this Stone that remains buried the absolute in Philosophy, which is the key to all those dark problems of Life and Death, some of which, at any rate, may find an explanation in these volumes.
The writer is vividly alive to the tremendous difficulties that present themselves in the handling of such abstruse questions, and to all the dangers of the task. Insulting as it is to human nature to brand truth with the name of imposture, nevertheless we see this done daily and accept it.
Occultism Must Win the Day - (Page 23) For every occult truth has to pass through such denial and its supporters through martyrdom, before it is finally accepted; though even then it remains but too often -
A crown
Golden in show, yet but a wreath of thorns.
Truths that rest on Occult Mysteries will have, for one reader who may appreciate them, a thousand who will brand them as impostures. This is only natural, and the only means to avoid it would be for an Occultist to pledge himself to the Pythagorean "vow of silence." and renew it every five years. Otherwise, cultured society - two-thirds of which think themselves in duty bound to believe that, since the first appearance of the first Adept, one half of mankind practised deception and fraud on the other half - cultured society will undeniably assert its hereditary and traditional right to stone the intruder. Those benevolent critics, who most readily promulgate the now famous axiom of Carlyle with regard to his countrymen, of being "mostly fools," having taken preliminary care to include themselves safely in the only fortunate exceptions to this rule, will in this work gain strength and derive additional conviction of the sad fact, that the human race is simply composed of knaves and congenital idiots. But this matters very little. The vindication of the Occultists and their Archaic Science is working itself slowly but steadily into the very heart of society, hourly, daily, and yearly, in the shape of two monster branches, two stray off-shoots of the trunk of Magic - Spiritualism and the Roman Church. Fact works its way very often through fiction. Like an immense boa-constrictor, Error, in every shape, encircles mankind, trying to smother in her deadly coils every aspiration towards truth and light. But Error is powerful only on the surface, prevented as she is by Occult Nature from going any deeper; for the same Occult Nature encircles the whole globe, in every direction, leaving not even the darkest corner unvisited. And, whether by phenomenon or miracle, by spirit-hook or bishop's crook, Occultism must win the day, before the present era reaches "Shani's (Saturn's) triple septenary" of the Western Cycle in Europe, in other words - before the end of the twenty-first century "A.D."
Truly the soil of the long by-gone past is not dead, for it has only rested. The skeletons of the sacred oaks of the ancient Druids may still send shoots from their dried-up boughs and be reborn to a new (Page 24) life, like that handful of corn, in the sarcophagus of a mummy 4.000 years old, which, when planted, sprouted, grew, and "gave a fine harvest." Why not? Truth is stranger than fiction. It may any day, and most unexpectedly, vindicate its wisdom and demonstrate the conceit of our age, by proving that the Secret Brotherhood did not, indeed, die out with the Philalethians of the last Eclectic School, that the Gnosis flourishes still on earth, and its votaries are many, albeit unknown. All this be done by one, or more, of the great Masters visiting Europe, and exposing in their turn the alleged exposers and traducers of Magic. Such secret Brotherhoods have been mentioned by several well-known authors, and are spoken of in Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia. The writer now, in the face of the millions who deny, repeats boldly, that which was said in Isis Unveiled.
If they [the Initiates] have been regarded as mere fictions of the novelist, that fact has only helped the "brother-adepts" to keep their incognito the more easily. . . .
The St. Germains and Cagliostros of this century, having learned bitter lessons from the vilifications and persecutions of the past, pursue different tactics now-a-days. [ Op. cit., ii.403.]
These prophetic words were written in 1876, and verified in 1886. Nevertheless, we say again,
There are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods which have naught to do with "civilized" countries; and it is in their unknown communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These "adepts" could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and exhibit verifiable documents that would explain many a mysterious page in both sacred and profane history. [ This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do, and many a "mysterious page" in sacred and profane history are touched on in these pages. Whether or not their explanations will be accepted - is another question.] Had the keys to the hieratic writings and the secret of Egyptian and Hindu symbolism been known to the Christian Fathers, they would not have allowed a single monument of old to stand unmutilated. [ Ibid.]
But there exists in the world another class of adepts, belonging to a brotherhood also, and mightier than any other of those known to the profane. Many among these are personally good and benevolent, even pure and holy occasionally, as individuals. Pursuing collectively, however, and as a body, a selfish, one-sided object, with relentless vigour and determination, they have to be ranked with the adepts of the Black Art.
Black Magic at Work - (Page 25) These are our modern Roman Catholic "fathers" and clergy. Most of the hieratic writings and symbols have been deciphered by them since the Middle Ages. A hundred times more learned in secret Symbology and the old Religions than our Orientalists will ever be, the personification of astuteness and cleverness, every such adept in the art holds the keys tightly in his firmly clenched hand, and will take care the secret shall not be easily divulged, if he can help it. There are more profoundly learned Kabalists in Rome and throughout Europe and America, than is generally suspected. Thus are the professedly public "brotherhoods" of "black" adepts more powerful and dangerous for Protestant countries than any host of Eastern Occultists. People laugh at Magic! Men of Science, Physiologists and Biologists, deride the potency and even the belief in the existence of what is called in vulgar parlance "Sorcery" and "Black Magic"? The Archaeologists have their Stonehenge in England with its thousands of secrets, and its twin-brother Karnac of Brittany, and yet there is not one of them who even suspects what has been going on in its crypts, and its mysterious nooks and corners, for the last century. More than that, they do not even know of the existence of such "magic halls" in their Stonehenge, where curious scenes are taking place, whenever there is a new convert in view. Hundreds of experiments have been, and are being made daily at the Salpetriere, and also by learned hypnotisers at their private houses. It is now proved that certain sensitives - both men and women - when commanded in trance, by the practitioner, who operates on them, to do a certain thing - from drinking a glass of water up to simulated murder - on recovering their normal state lose all remembrance of the order inspired - "suggested" it is now called by Science. Nevertheless, at the appointed hour and moment, the subject, though conscious and perfectly awake, is compelled by an irresistible power within himself to do that action which has been suggested to him by his mesmeriser; and that too, whatever it may be, and whatever the period fixed by him who controls the subject, that is to say, holds the latter under the power of his will, as a snake holds a bird under its fascination, and finally forces it to jump into its open jaws. Worse than this: for the bird is conscious of the peril; it resists, however helpless in its final efforts, while the hypnotized subject does not rebel, but seems to follow the suggestions and voice of its own free-will and soul. Who of our European men of Science, who believe in such scientific experiments - and very (Page 26) few are they who still doubt them now-a-days, and who do not feel convinced of their actual reality - who of them, it is asked, is ready to admit this as being Black Magic? Yet it is the genuine, undeniable and actual fascination and sorcery of old. The Mulu Kurumbas of Nilgiri do not proceed otherwise in their envoutements when they seek to destroy an enemy, nor do the Dugpas of Sikkim and Bhutan know of any more potential agent than their will. Only in them that will does not proceed by jumps and starts, but acts with certainty; it does not depend on the amount of receptivity or nervous impressibility of the "subjects." Having chosen his victim and placed himself en rapport with them, the Dugpa's "fluid" is sure to find its way, for his will is immeasurably more strongly developed than the will of the European experimenter - the self-made, untutored, and unconscious Sorcerer for the sake of Science - who has no idea (or belief either) of the variety and potency of the world-old methods used to develop this power, by the conscious sorcerer, the "Black Magician" of the East and West.
And now the question is openly and squarely asked: Why should not the fanatical and zealous priest, thirsting to convert some selected rich and influential member of society, use the same means to accomplish his end as the French Physician and experimenter uses in his case with his subject? The conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace. He works personally for no selfish purpose, but with the object of "saving a soul" from "eternal damnation." In his view, if Magic there be in it, it is holy, meritorious and divine Magic. Such is the power of blind faith.
Hence, when we are assured by trustworthy and respectable persons of high social standing, and unimpeachable character, that there are many well-organised societies among the Roman Catholic priests which, under the pretext and cover of Modern Spiritualism and mediumship, hold séances for the purposes of conversion by suggestion, directly and at a distance - we answer: We know it. And when, moreover, we are told that whenever those priest-hypnotists are desirous of acquiring an influence over some individual or individuals, selected by them for conversion, they retire to an underground place, allotted and consecrated by them for such purposes (viz., ceremonial Magic); and there, forming a circle, throw their combined will-power in the direction of that individual, and thus by repeating the process, gain a complete control over their victim - we again answer: Very likely.
Black Magic and Hypnotism - (Page 27) In fact we know the practice to be so, whether this kind of ceremonial Magic and envoûtement is practised at Stonehenge or elsewhere. We know it, we say, through personal experience; and also because several of the writer's best and most loved friends have been unconsciously drawn into the Romish Church and under her "benign" protection by such means. And, therefore, we can only laugh in pity at the ignorance and stubbornness of those deluded men of Science and cultured experimentalists who, while believing in the power of Dr. Charcot and his disciples to "envoûté" their subjects, find nothing better than a scornful smile whenever Black Magic and its potency are mentioned before them. Eliphas Levi, the Abbe-Kabalist, died before Science and the Faculté de Médecine of France had accepted hypnotism and influence par suggestion among its scientific experiments, but this is what he said twenty-five years go, in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, on "Les Envoutements et les Sorts":
That which sorcerers and necromancers sought above all things in their evocations of the Spirit of Evil, was that magnetic potency which is the lawful property of the true Adept, and which they desired to obtain possession of for evil purposes. . . . One of their chief aims was the power of spells or of deleterious influences. . . . That power may be compared to real poisonings by a current of astral light. They exalt their will by means of ceremonies to the degree of rendering it venomous at a distance. . . .We have said in our "Dogma" what we thought of magic spells, and how this power was exceedingly real and dangerous. The true Magus throws a spell without ceremony and by his sole disapproval, upon those with whose conduct he is dissatisfied, and whom he thinks it necessary to punish; [ This is incorrectly expressed. The true Adept of the "Right Hand" never punishes anyone, not even his bitterest and most dangerous enemy: he simply leaves the latter to his Karma, and Karma never fails to do so, sooner or later.] he casts a spell, even by his pardon, over those who do him injury, and the enemies of Initiates never long enjoy impunity for their wrong-doing. We have ourselves seen proofs of this fatal law in numerous instances. The executioners of martyrs always perish miserably; and the Adepts are the martyrs of intelligence. Providence [Karma] seems to despise those who despise them, and puts to death those who would seek to prevent them from living. The legend of the Wandering Jew is the popular poetry of this arcanum. A people had sent a sage to crucifixion; that people had bidden him "Move on!" when he tried to rest for one moment.... well! That people will become subject, henceforth, to a similar condemnation; it will become entirely proscribed, and for long centuries it will be hidden "Move on! move on!" finding neither rest nor pity.[ Op. cit.,ii. 239. 241,240.]
(Page 28) "Fables," and "superstition," will be the answer. Be it so. Before the lethal breath of selfishness and indifference every uncomfortable fact is transformed into meaningless fiction, and every branch of the once verdant Tree of Truth has become dried up and stripped of its primeval spiritual significance. Our modern Symbologist is superlatively clever only at detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems even where none were ever meant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic could no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than day without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months duration. For him everything in that Nature has an occult - a bright and a night side to it. Pyramids and Druid's oaks, dolmens and Bo-trees, plant and mineral - everything was full of deep significance and of sacred truths of wisdom, when the Arch-Druid performed his magic cures and incantations, and the Egyptian Hierophant evoked and guided Chemnu, the "lovely spectre," the female Frankenstein-creation of old, raised for the torture and test of the soul-power of the candidate for initiation, simultaneously with the last agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature. True, Magic has lost its name, and along with it its rights to recognition. But its practice is in daily use; and its progeny, "magnetic influence," "power of oratory," "irresistible fascination," "whole audiences subdued and held as though under a spell," are terms recognised and used by all, generally meaningless though they now are. Its effects, however, are more determined and definite among religious congregations such as the Shakers, the Negro Methodists, and Salvationists, who call it "the action of the Holy Spirit" and "grace." The real truth is that Magic is still in full sway amidst mankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and influence on its members, however ignorant society may be, and remain, to its daily and hourly beneficent and maleficent effects. The world is full of such unconscious magicians - in politics as well as in daily life, in the Church as in the strongholds of Free-Thought. Most of those magicians are "sorcerers" unhappily, not metaphorically but in sober reality, by reason of their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy and malice. The true student of Magic, well aware of the truth, looks on in pity, and, if he be wise, keeps silent. For every effort made by him to remove the universal cecity is only repaid with ingratitude, slander, and often curses, which, unable to reach him, will react on those who wish him evil. Lies and calumny - the latter a teething lie, adding actual bites to empty harmless falsehoods - become his lot, and thus the well-wisher is soon torn to pieces, as a reward for his benevolent desire to enlighten.
The Philosophy Stands on Its Own Merits - (Page 29) Enough has been given, it is believed, to show that the existence of a Secret Universal Doctrine, besides its practical methods of Magic, is no wild romance or fiction. The fact was known to the whole ancient world, and the knowledge of it has survived in the East, in India especially. And if there be such a Science, there must be naturally, somewhere, professors of it, or Adepts. In any case it matters little whether the Guardians of the Sacred Lore are regarded as living, actually existing men, or are viewed as myths. It is their Philosophy that will have to stand or fall upon its own merits, apart from, and independent of any Adepts. For in the words of the wise Gamaliel, addressed by him to the Synedrion: "If this doctrine is false it will perish, and fall of itself; but if true, then - it cannot be destroyed.
