Chapter 26

The central sun ... was to them [as much as to the Âryans] thecentre of rest; the centre to which all motion was to be ultimately referred. Round this central sun ...“the first of three systemic suns ... revolved on a polar plane ... the second, on an equatorial plane”... and the third only was our visible sun. These four solar bodies were“the organs on whose action what man calls the creation, the evolution of life on the planet earth, depends.”The channels through which the influence of these bodies was conveyed to the earth they [the Kabalists] held to be electrical.... The radiant energy flowing from the central sun555called the earth into being as a watery globe, ... [whose tendency], as the nucleus of a planetary body, was to rush to the (central) sun ... within the sphere of whose attraction it had been created.... But the radiant energy, similarly electrifying both, withheld the one from the other, and so changed motion towards into motion round the centre of attraction, which the revolving planet [earth] thus sought to reach.In the organic cell thevisible sunfound its own proper matrix, and produced through this the animal [while maturing the vegetable] kingdom, finally placing man at its head, in whom, through the animating action of that kingdom, it originated the psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal kingdom, at the head of the creation, was the animal, thesoul-less, the perishable man....[pg 251]Hence man, although apparently its crown, would, by his advent have marked the close of creation; since creation, culminating in him, would at his death have entered on its decline.556This Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the Eastern Doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the Seven Suns with the seven systems of Planes of Being, of which the“Suns”are the central bodies, and you have the seven Angelic Planes, whose“Host”collectively are the Gods thereof.557They are the Head Group divided into four Classes, from the Incorporeal down to the Semi-corporeal. These Classes are directly connected—though in very different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions—with our mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth, the first and highest, which is called the“Central Sun”in the Kabalistic doctrine just quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Âryan Cosmogony—one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of Nature; the other spiritualizes Matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh“principle”reaches man through all the phases of Being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes through—theKabalahteachesfrom—the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the Second, the Polar Sun, which two radiate on man his Âtmâ. Group Three, the Equatorial Sun, cements the Buddhi to Âtman and the higher attributes of Manas; while Group Four, the Spirit of our visible Sun, endows him with his Manas and its vehicle, the Kâma Rûpa, or body of passions and desires—the two elements of Ahamkâra which evolveindividualized consciousness, the personal Ego. Finally, it is the Spirit of the Earth, in its triple unity, that builds the Physical Body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his Linga Sharîra.But everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else, and the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern Teachings, whereas it is only hinted at in theKabalah. Says theBook of Dzyanwith regard to Primeval Man when first projected by the“Boneless,”the Incorporeal Creator:First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow-Son [the Body] were“created.”But where was the Pivot [the Middle Principle, Manas]? Man is doomed. When alone, the Indiscrete [Undifferentiated Element] and the Vâhan [Buddhi]—the Cause of the Causeless—break asunder from manifested life.[pg 252]“Unless,”explains the Commentary:Unless cemented and held together by the Middle Principle, the Vehicle of the personal consciousness of Jîva.In other words, the two higher“principles”can have no individuality on Earth, cannot beman, unless there is (a) the Mind, the Manas-Ego, to cognize itself, and (b) the terrestrial false Personality, or the Body of egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a Pivot—which it is, truly—to the physical form of man. It is thefifthand thefourth“principles”558—Manas and Kâma Rûpa—that contain the dual Personality; the real immortal Ego, if it assimilates itself to the two higher, and the false and transitory Personality, the Mâyâvi or Astral Body, so-called, or the Animal-human Soul—the two having to be closely blended for purposes of afullterrestrial existence. Incarnate the Spiritual Monad of a Newton, grafted on that of the greatest saint on Earth, in a physical body the most perfect you can think of—i.e., in a two or even a three-principled Body composed of its Sthûla Sharîra, Prâna (Life-principle) and Linga Sharîra—and, if it lacks its middle and fifth“principles,”you will have createdan idiot—at best a beautiful, soul-less, empty and unconscious appearance.“Cogito—ergo sum”can find no room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate.There are students, however, who have long ago understood the philosophical meaning underlying the allegory—so tortured and disfigured by the Roman Church—of the“Fallen Angels.”The kingdom of spirits and spiritual action, which flows from and is the product of spirit volition, is outside and contrasted with and in contradiction to the kingdom of [divine] souls and divine action.559As said in the text of Commentary xiv:Like produces like and no more at the genesis of Being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self Existent560are called“Creations,”for they appear in the Spirit-Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in its Unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and [limited or conditioned] Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called creation and creatures; they are the development [evolution] of the Discrete Elements.[pg 253]Again:The Heavenly Rûpa [Dhyân Chohan] creates [man] in his own form; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal [manifested] Substance; that form is the ideal Shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race.To express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this Earth only, it was the duty of the first“differentiated”Egos—the Church calls them Archangels—to imbue Primordial Matter with the evolutionary impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and Western tradition—“the Angels werecommanded to create.”After the Earth had been made ready by thelowerand more material Powers, and its three Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be“fruitful and multiply,”the higher Powers, the Archangels or Dhyânîs, were compelled by the Evolutionary Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution—Man. Thus the“Self-created”and the“Self-existent”projected their pale Shadows; but Group the Third, the Fire-Angels,rebelled and refusedto join their fellow Devas.Hindû exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse to“create,”as they desired to remain eternally Kumâras,“Virgin Youths,”in order, if possible, to anticipate their fellows in progress towards Nirvâna-the final liberation. But, agreeably to Esoteric interpretation, it was a self-sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The“Rebels”would not create will-less irresponsible men, as the“obedient”Angels did; nor could they endow human beings with even the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for the latter, belonging to another and a so much higher plane of consciousness, would leave man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of higher progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on Earth—the lowest and most material plane—for one who, on that plane at all events, is inherentlyperfectand cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Had Man remained the pale Shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless Perfection, the one negative and passive attribute of the realI am that I am, he would have been doomed to pass through life on Earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a failure on this plane. The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first pronounced (if, indeed, they ever were pronounced) the cruel words,“Behold, the man is becomeas one of us, to[pg 254]know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...”—must have been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature, the reflection of which created Ophiomorphos. In this case it is but natural—even from the dead-letter standpoint—to view Satan, the Serpent ofGenesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Mankind. For it is he who was the“Harbinger of Light,”bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton“created”by Jehovah, as alleged. And he who was the first to whisper,“in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil,”can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An“Adversary”to Jehovah, the“personatingspirit,”he still remains in Esoteric Truth the ever-loving“Messenger,”the Angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both“knew”well, and“loved”still more, and who conferred on us Spiritual, instead of Physical Immortality—the latter a kind ofstaticimmortality that would have transformed man into an undying“Wandering Jew.”As narrated in King'sGnostics and their Remainsconcerning Ildabaoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses:Ildabaoth was far from being a pure spirit; ambition and pride dominated in his composition. He therefore resolved to break off all connection with his mother, Achamoth, and to create a world entirely for himself. Aided by his own Six Spirits, he created Man, intending him for the image of his power; but he failed utterly in his work, his Man proving a vast, soulless monster, crawling upon the earth. The Six Spirits were obliged to bring their work again before their father, to be animated: he did so by communicating the ray of Divine Light which he himself had inherited from Achamoth, who by this loss punished him for his pride and self-sufficiency.Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son, followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the“Primal Man.”At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose“Satan Serpent-formed,”Ophiomorphos, the embodiment of envy and cunning.561This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from the dead-letter text of Chapter iii ofGenesis.[pg 255]Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the Divine Fire so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of Spiritual Evolution, thus transforming the most perfect ofanimalson Earth into a potential God, and making him free to“take the kingdom of heaven by violence.”Hence, also, thecursepronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah-Ilda-baoth against his“rebellious son,”Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian mountain and the never-dying, singeing fire and flames of an inextinguishable Hell, two poles, yet the same idea, the dual aspect of a refined torture; a“Fire-producer”—the personified emblem of Φωσφόρος (Phósphoros), of the Astral Fire and Light in the Anima Mundi (that Element of which the German materialist philosopher Moleschott said:“ohnePhosphorkein Gedanke,”or“without phosphorus no thought”)—burning in the fierce Flames of his terrestrial Passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart—a Prometheus indeed, because aconscious, and hence aresponsibleentity.562The curse of life is great, yet, with the exception of some Hindû and Sufi mystics, how few are those who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils of a responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive (objectively)incorporealBeing, or even the universal static Inertia personified in Brahmâ during his“Night's”Rest. For, to quote from an able article by one563who, confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim thereto:Satan [or Lucifer] represents theActive, or, as [M. Jules] Baissac calls it, the“Centrifugal”Energy of the Universe [in a cosmic sense]. He is Fire, Light, Life, Struggle, Effort, Thought, Consciousness, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence. At the same time he isPain, which is the Reaction of thePleasureof Action, andDeath—which is the Revolution ofLife—Satan, burning in his own Hell, produced by the fury of his own momentum—the expansive disintegration of the Nebula which is to concentrate into New Worlds. And fitly is he again and[pg 256]again baffled by the Eternal Inertia of thePassiveEnergy of the Kosmos—the inexorable“I am”—the Flint from which the sparks are beaten out. And fitly ... are he and his adherents ... consigned to the“Sea of Fire”—becauseit isthe Sun [in one sense only in the cosmic allegory], the Fount of Life inoursystem, where they are purified (meaning thereby disintegrated) and churned up to reärrange them for another life (the Resurrection)—thatSunwhich, as the Origin of the Active Principle of our Earth, is at once theHomeand theSourceof the Mundane Satan....Furthermore, as if to demonstrate the accuracy of Baissac's general theory [inLe Diable et Satan] cold is known to have a“Centripetal”effect. Under the influence of Cold everything contracts.... Under it Lifehybernates, or dies out, Thought congeals, and Fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own Fire-Sea—it is only in the“Nifl-Heim”[the cold Hell of the ScandinavianEddas] of the“I am”that he cannot exist. But for all that there is a kind ofImmortalExistence in Nifl-Heim, and that Existence must bePainlessandPeaceful, because it isUnconsciousandInactive. In the Kingdom ofJehovah[if this God were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him] there is no misery, no war, no marrying and giving in marriage, no change, noIndividual Consciousness.564All is absorbed in the spirit of the Most Powerful.It is emphatically a Kingdom of Peace and loyal Submission, as that of the“Arch-Rebel”is one of War and Revolution....It [the former] is in fact what Theosophy calls Nirvâna. But then Theosophy teaches that Separation from the Primal Sourcehaving once occurred, Reünion can only be achieved byWill-Effort—which is distinctly Satanic in the sense of this essay.565Itis“Satanic”from the standpoint of orthodox Romanism, for it is owing to the prototype of that which became in time the Christian Devil—to the Radiant Archangels, Dhyân Chohans, who refused to create, because they wanted Manto become his own creatorand an immortal God—that men can reach Nirvâna and the Haven of heavenly Divine Peace.To close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumâras, the“Virgin-Angels,”(to whom the Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, both belong,) the Divine“Rebels”—called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or“Deprived”—preferred thecurseofincarnationand the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery, even ifunconscious, of the beings who were evolved as Shadows out of their Brethren, through the semi-passive energy of theirtoo spiritualCreators. If“man's uses of life should be such as neither to animalize[pg 257]nor to spiritualize, but tohumanizeSelf,”566to do so, he must be bornhumannot angelic. Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogîs offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity, which was created god-like and perfect at first, and endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status, descend on our Globe, and take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahâyuga, thus exchanging their impersonal Individualities for individual Personalities—the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature wasKnowledgeandLove, has been construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows“the Rebel Angels hurled down from Heaven into the darkness of Hell”—our Earth. Hindû Philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that the Asuras, hurled down by Shiva, are only in anintermediate state, in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption from their wretched condition; but Christian Theology—claiming to be based on the rock of the divine love, charity, and justice of him it appeals to as its Saviour—to paradoxically enforce that claim, has invented the dreary dogma of Hell, that Archimedean lever of Roman Catholic philosophy.Whereas Rabbinical wisdom—than which there is none more positive, materialistic, or grossly terrestrial, as it brings everything down to physiological mysteries—calls these Beings, the“Evil One”; and the Kabalists—Nahash,“Deprived,”as just said, and the Souls that have,after having been alienated in Heaven from the Holy One, thrown themselves into an Abyss at the dawn of their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to descend on Earth.567And let me explain at once that our quarrel is not with theZoharor any other book of theKabalahin its right interpretation—for the latter is the same as our own—but only with the gross,pseudo-esoteric explanations of the later, and especially of the Christian Kabalists.[pg 258]Says the Commentary:Our earth and man [are] the products of the three Fires.The names of these three answer, in Sanskrit, to the“Electric Fire,”the“Solar Fire,”and the“Fire produced by Friction.”Explained on the cosmic and human planes, these three Fires are Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root Groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary with the Schools, and—according to their applications—become the Upâdhis and the Vehicles, or the Noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are personified by the“three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendour”of Agni Abhimânin, the eldest son of Brahmâ, the Cosmic Logos, by Svâhâ, one of Daksha's568daughters. In the metaphysical sense, the“Fire by Friction”means the union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth“principle,”which thus are united or cemented together, the fifth merging partially into and becoming part of the Monad; in the physical, it relates to the“creative spark,”or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three Fires, whose names are Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Shuchi, were condemned, it is said, by a curse of Vasishtha, the great Sage,“to be born over and over again.”569This is clear enough.Therefore, the Flames, whose functions are confused in the exoteric books, and who are called indifferently Prajâpatis, Pitris, Manus, Asuras, Rishis, Kumâras,570etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root-Race and thus find themselves“reborn over and over again.”In the Esoteric Doctrine they are generally named Asuras, or the Asura Devatâ or Pitar Devatâ (Gods), for, as said, they were first Gods—and the highest—before they became“No-Gods,”and had from Spirits of Heaven fallen into Spirits of Earth571—exoterically, note well, in orthodox dogma.[pg 259]No Theologian or Orientalist can ever understand the genealogies of the Prajâpatis, the Manus, and the Rishis, or the direct connection of these—their correlation rather—with the Gods, unless he has the key to the old primitive Cosmogony and Theogony, which all nations originally had in common. All these Gods and Demi-gods are found reborn on Earth, in various Kalpas and in as various characters; each, moreover,having his Karma distinctly traced, and every effect assigned to its cause.Before other Stanzas could be explained, it was, as may be seen, absolutely necessary to show that the Sons of“Dark Wisdom,”though identical with the Archangels which Theology has chosen to call the“Fallen,”are as divine and as pure, if not more pure, than all the Michaels and Gabriels so glorified in the Churches. The“Old Book”also goes into various details of Astral Life, which at this juncture would be quite incomprehensible to the reader. It must, therefore, be left for later explanation, and the First and Second Races will now receive only bare notice. Not so the Third Race—the Root-Race which separated into sexes, and which was the first to be endowed with reason; men evolvingpari passuwith the Globe, and the latter having“incrustated”more than a hundred millions of years before the first human sub-race had yet begun to materialize or solidify, so to say. But, as the Stanza has it:The Inner Man [the Conscious Entity] was not.This“Conscious Entity”Occultism says, comes from, nay, in many casesis, the very essence andesseof the high Intelligences, condemned, by the undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reïncarnate in this Manvantara.(b) Shloka 39 relates exclusively to the racial divisions. Strictly speaking, Esoteric Philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For, while it assigns to humanity a oneness of origin, in so far that its Forefathers or“Creators”were all Divine Beings—though of different classes or degrees of perfection in their Hierarchy—it teaches that men were nevertheless born at seven different centres of the Continent of that period. Though all were of one common origin, yet, for reasons given, their potentialities and mental capabilities, outward or physical forms, and future characteristics, were very different.572As to their[pg 260]complexions, there is a suggestive allegory told inLinga Purâna. The Kumâras—the Rudra Gods, so called—are described as incarnations of Shiva, the Destroyer (ofoutward forms), called also Vâmadeva. The latter, as a Kumâra, the“Eternal Celibate,”the chaste Virgin Youth, springs from Brahmâ in each great Manvantara, and“again becomes four”; a reference to the four great divisions of the human Races, as regards complexion and type—and the three chief variations of these. Thus in the twenty-ninth Kalpa—in this case a reference to the transformation and evolution of the human form, which Shiva ever destroys and remodels periodically down to the great Manvantaric turning point, about the middle of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race—in the twenty-ninth Kalpa, Shiva, as Shvetalohita, the Root-Kumâra, from moon-coloured becomeswhite; in his next transformation, he isred(and in this the exoteric version differs from the Esoteric Teaching); in the third,yellow; in the fourth,black.Esotericism now classes these seven variations, with their four great divisions, into only three distinct primeval Races—as it does not take into consideration the First Race, which had neither type nor colour, and a hardly objective, though colossal, form. The evolution of these Races, their formation and development, proceeded on parallel lines with the evolution, formation, and development of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much derived as it was determined by the climates of these zones. The Esoteric Teaching names three great divisions, namely, thered-yellow, theblack, and thebrown-white.573The Âryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are nevertheless all of one and the same stock, the Fifth Root-Race, and spring from one single Progenitor, called in Hindûexotericismby the generic name of Vaivasvata Manu; the latter, remember, being that Generic Personage, the Sage, who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago—at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the Great Continent of Atlantis,574and[pg 261]who is said to live even now in his mankind.575The light yellow is the colour of the firstsolidhuman race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root-Race—after its fall into generation, as just explained—bringing on the final changes. For, it is only at that period that the last transformation took place, which brought forth man as he is now, only on a magnified scale. This Race gave birth to the Fourth Race;“Shiva”gradually transforming that portion of Humanity which became“black with sin”into red-yellow, of which the red Indians and the Mongolians are the descendants, and finally into brown-white races—which now, together with the yellow races, form the great bulk of Humanity. The allegory inLinga Purânais curious, as showing the great ethnological knowledge of the ancients.When reading of the“last transformation,”which is said to have taken place 18,000,000 years ago, let the reader at this juncture, consider how many millions more it must have required to reach that final stage. And if Man, in his gradual consolidation, developedpari passuwith the Earth, how many millions of years must have elapsed during the First, Second, and the first half of the Third Race. For the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached its last consolidated state. The Archaic Teachings, moreover, tell us that, during the middle period of the Lemuro-Atlantean Race, three and a half Races after the Genesis of Man, the Earth, Man, and everything on the Globe, were of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that have intervened since then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps toward our“dematerialization,”as the Spiritualists would say. The Earth, ourselves, and all things have softened since then—aye, even our brains. But it has been objected by some Theosophists that an ethereal Earth even some 15 or 20,000,000 years ago,“does not square with Geology,”which teaches us that winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and accumulated, etc.; that, in short, all natural causes now in operation were then in force,“in the very earliest ages of geological time, aye, that of the oldest palæozoic rocks.”To this the following answers are given. Firstly, what is the date assigned by Geology to these“oldest palæozoic rocks”? And secondly, why could not the winds blow, rain fall, and waves—of“carbonic acid”[pg 262]apparently, as Science seems to imply—break on the shore, on an Earth semi-astral,i.e., viscid? The word“astral”does not necessarily, in Occult phraseology, mean as thin as smoke, but rather“starry,”shining or pellucid, in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a viscid state, as just observed. But it is further objected:“How could an astral Earth have affected the other Planets in this System? Would not the whole process get out of gear now if the attraction of one Planet were suddenly removed?”The objection is evidently invalid, since our System is composed of older and younger Planets, some dead—like the Moon—others in process of formation, for all that Astronomy knows to the contrary. Nor has the latter ever affirmed, so far as we know, that all the bodies of our System have sprung into existence and developed simultaneously. The Cis-Himâlayan Secret Teachings differ from those of India in this respect. Hindû Occultism teaches that the Vaivasvata Manu Humanity is 18,000,000 and odd years old. We say, yes; but only so far asphysicalor approximately physical, Man is concerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root-Race. Beyond that periodMan, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300,000,000 years, for all we know;since we are not taught figureswhich are and will remain secret with the Masters of Occult Science, as justly stated inEsoteric Buddhism. Moreover, whereas the HindûPurânasspeak of one Vaivasvata Manu, we affirm that there were several, the name being a generic one.We must now say a few more words on the physical evolution of man.

In the organic cell thevisible sunfound its own proper matrix, and produced through this the animal [while maturing the vegetable] kingdom, finally placing man at its head, in whom, through the animating action of that kingdom, it originated the psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal kingdom, at the head of the creation, was the animal, thesoul-less, the perishable man....[pg 251]Hence man, although apparently its crown, would, by his advent have marked the close of creation; since creation, culminating in him, would at his death have entered on its decline.556

This Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the Eastern Doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the Seven Suns with the seven systems of Planes of Being, of which the“Suns”are the central bodies, and you have the seven Angelic Planes, whose“Host”collectively are the Gods thereof.557They are the Head Group divided into four Classes, from the Incorporeal down to the Semi-corporeal. These Classes are directly connected—though in very different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions—with our mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth, the first and highest, which is called the“Central Sun”in the Kabalistic doctrine just quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Âryan Cosmogony—one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of Nature; the other spiritualizes Matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh“principle”reaches man through all the phases of Being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes through—theKabalahteachesfrom—the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the Second, the Polar Sun, which two radiate on man his Âtmâ. Group Three, the Equatorial Sun, cements the Buddhi to Âtman and the higher attributes of Manas; while Group Four, the Spirit of our visible Sun, endows him with his Manas and its vehicle, the Kâma Rûpa, or body of passions and desires—the two elements of Ahamkâra which evolveindividualized consciousness, the personal Ego. Finally, it is the Spirit of the Earth, in its triple unity, that builds the Physical Body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his Linga Sharîra.

But everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else, and the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern Teachings, whereas it is only hinted at in theKabalah. Says theBook of Dzyanwith regard to Primeval Man when first projected by the“Boneless,”the Incorporeal Creator:

First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow-Son [the Body] were“created.”But where was the Pivot [the Middle Principle, Manas]? Man is doomed. When alone, the Indiscrete [Undifferentiated Element] and the Vâhan [Buddhi]—the Cause of the Causeless—break asunder from manifested life.

“Unless,”explains the Commentary:

Unless cemented and held together by the Middle Principle, the Vehicle of the personal consciousness of Jîva.

In other words, the two higher“principles”can have no individuality on Earth, cannot beman, unless there is (a) the Mind, the Manas-Ego, to cognize itself, and (b) the terrestrial false Personality, or the Body of egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a Pivot—which it is, truly—to the physical form of man. It is thefifthand thefourth“principles”558—Manas and Kâma Rûpa—that contain the dual Personality; the real immortal Ego, if it assimilates itself to the two higher, and the false and transitory Personality, the Mâyâvi or Astral Body, so-called, or the Animal-human Soul—the two having to be closely blended for purposes of afullterrestrial existence. Incarnate the Spiritual Monad of a Newton, grafted on that of the greatest saint on Earth, in a physical body the most perfect you can think of—i.e., in a two or even a three-principled Body composed of its Sthûla Sharîra, Prâna (Life-principle) and Linga Sharîra—and, if it lacks its middle and fifth“principles,”you will have createdan idiot—at best a beautiful, soul-less, empty and unconscious appearance.“Cogito—ergo sum”can find no room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate.

There are students, however, who have long ago understood the philosophical meaning underlying the allegory—so tortured and disfigured by the Roman Church—of the“Fallen Angels.”

The kingdom of spirits and spiritual action, which flows from and is the product of spirit volition, is outside and contrasted with and in contradiction to the kingdom of [divine] souls and divine action.559

As said in the text of Commentary xiv:

Like produces like and no more at the genesis of Being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self Existent560are called“Creations,”for they appear in the Spirit-Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in its Unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and [limited or conditioned] Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called creation and creatures; they are the development [evolution] of the Discrete Elements.

Again:

The Heavenly Rûpa [Dhyân Chohan] creates [man] in his own form; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal [manifested] Substance; that form is the ideal Shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race.

To express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this Earth only, it was the duty of the first“differentiated”Egos—the Church calls them Archangels—to imbue Primordial Matter with the evolutionary impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and Western tradition—“the Angels werecommanded to create.”After the Earth had been made ready by thelowerand more material Powers, and its three Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be“fruitful and multiply,”the higher Powers, the Archangels or Dhyânîs, were compelled by the Evolutionary Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution—Man. Thus the“Self-created”and the“Self-existent”projected their pale Shadows; but Group the Third, the Fire-Angels,rebelled and refusedto join their fellow Devas.

Hindû exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse to“create,”as they desired to remain eternally Kumâras,“Virgin Youths,”in order, if possible, to anticipate their fellows in progress towards Nirvâna-the final liberation. But, agreeably to Esoteric interpretation, it was a self-sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The“Rebels”would not create will-less irresponsible men, as the“obedient”Angels did; nor could they endow human beings with even the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for the latter, belonging to another and a so much higher plane of consciousness, would leave man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of higher progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on Earth—the lowest and most material plane—for one who, on that plane at all events, is inherentlyperfectand cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Had Man remained the pale Shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless Perfection, the one negative and passive attribute of the realI am that I am, he would have been doomed to pass through life on Earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a failure on this plane. The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first pronounced (if, indeed, they ever were pronounced) the cruel words,“Behold, the man is becomeas one of us, to[pg 254]know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...”—must have been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature, the reflection of which created Ophiomorphos. In this case it is but natural—even from the dead-letter standpoint—to view Satan, the Serpent ofGenesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Mankind. For it is he who was the“Harbinger of Light,”bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton“created”by Jehovah, as alleged. And he who was the first to whisper,“in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil,”can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An“Adversary”to Jehovah, the“personatingspirit,”he still remains in Esoteric Truth the ever-loving“Messenger,”the Angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both“knew”well, and“loved”still more, and who conferred on us Spiritual, instead of Physical Immortality—the latter a kind ofstaticimmortality that would have transformed man into an undying“Wandering Jew.”

As narrated in King'sGnostics and their Remainsconcerning Ildabaoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses:

Ildabaoth was far from being a pure spirit; ambition and pride dominated in his composition. He therefore resolved to break off all connection with his mother, Achamoth, and to create a world entirely for himself. Aided by his own Six Spirits, he created Man, intending him for the image of his power; but he failed utterly in his work, his Man proving a vast, soulless monster, crawling upon the earth. The Six Spirits were obliged to bring their work again before their father, to be animated: he did so by communicating the ray of Divine Light which he himself had inherited from Achamoth, who by this loss punished him for his pride and self-sufficiency.Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son, followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the“Primal Man.”At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose“Satan Serpent-formed,”Ophiomorphos, the embodiment of envy and cunning.561

Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son, followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the“Primal Man.”At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose“Satan Serpent-formed,”Ophiomorphos, the embodiment of envy and cunning.561

This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from the dead-letter text of Chapter iii ofGenesis.[pg 255]Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the Divine Fire so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of Spiritual Evolution, thus transforming the most perfect ofanimalson Earth into a potential God, and making him free to“take the kingdom of heaven by violence.”Hence, also, thecursepronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah-Ilda-baoth against his“rebellious son,”Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian mountain and the never-dying, singeing fire and flames of an inextinguishable Hell, two poles, yet the same idea, the dual aspect of a refined torture; a“Fire-producer”—the personified emblem of Φωσφόρος (Phósphoros), of the Astral Fire and Light in the Anima Mundi (that Element of which the German materialist philosopher Moleschott said:“ohnePhosphorkein Gedanke,”or“without phosphorus no thought”)—burning in the fierce Flames of his terrestrial Passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart—a Prometheus indeed, because aconscious, and hence aresponsibleentity.562The curse of life is great, yet, with the exception of some Hindû and Sufi mystics, how few are those who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils of a responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive (objectively)incorporealBeing, or even the universal static Inertia personified in Brahmâ during his“Night's”Rest. For, to quote from an able article by one563who, confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim thereto:

Satan [or Lucifer] represents theActive, or, as [M. Jules] Baissac calls it, the“Centrifugal”Energy of the Universe [in a cosmic sense]. He is Fire, Light, Life, Struggle, Effort, Thought, Consciousness, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence. At the same time he isPain, which is the Reaction of thePleasureof Action, andDeath—which is the Revolution ofLife—Satan, burning in his own Hell, produced by the fury of his own momentum—the expansive disintegration of the Nebula which is to concentrate into New Worlds. And fitly is he again and[pg 256]again baffled by the Eternal Inertia of thePassiveEnergy of the Kosmos—the inexorable“I am”—the Flint from which the sparks are beaten out. And fitly ... are he and his adherents ... consigned to the“Sea of Fire”—becauseit isthe Sun [in one sense only in the cosmic allegory], the Fount of Life inoursystem, where they are purified (meaning thereby disintegrated) and churned up to reärrange them for another life (the Resurrection)—thatSunwhich, as the Origin of the Active Principle of our Earth, is at once theHomeand theSourceof the Mundane Satan....Furthermore, as if to demonstrate the accuracy of Baissac's general theory [inLe Diable et Satan] cold is known to have a“Centripetal”effect. Under the influence of Cold everything contracts.... Under it Lifehybernates, or dies out, Thought congeals, and Fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own Fire-Sea—it is only in the“Nifl-Heim”[the cold Hell of the ScandinavianEddas] of the“I am”that he cannot exist. But for all that there is a kind ofImmortalExistence in Nifl-Heim, and that Existence must bePainlessandPeaceful, because it isUnconsciousandInactive. In the Kingdom ofJehovah[if this God were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him] there is no misery, no war, no marrying and giving in marriage, no change, noIndividual Consciousness.564All is absorbed in the spirit of the Most Powerful.It is emphatically a Kingdom of Peace and loyal Submission, as that of the“Arch-Rebel”is one of War and Revolution....It [the former] is in fact what Theosophy calls Nirvâna. But then Theosophy teaches that Separation from the Primal Sourcehaving once occurred, Reünion can only be achieved byWill-Effort—which is distinctly Satanic in the sense of this essay.565

Furthermore, as if to demonstrate the accuracy of Baissac's general theory [inLe Diable et Satan] cold is known to have a“Centripetal”effect. Under the influence of Cold everything contracts.... Under it Lifehybernates, or dies out, Thought congeals, and Fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own Fire-Sea—it is only in the“Nifl-Heim”[the cold Hell of the ScandinavianEddas] of the“I am”that he cannot exist. But for all that there is a kind ofImmortalExistence in Nifl-Heim, and that Existence must bePainlessandPeaceful, because it isUnconsciousandInactive. In the Kingdom ofJehovah[if this God were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him] there is no misery, no war, no marrying and giving in marriage, no change, noIndividual Consciousness.564All is absorbed in the spirit of the Most Powerful.It is emphatically a Kingdom of Peace and loyal Submission, as that of the“Arch-Rebel”is one of War and Revolution....It [the former] is in fact what Theosophy calls Nirvâna. But then Theosophy teaches that Separation from the Primal Sourcehaving once occurred, Reünion can only be achieved byWill-Effort—which is distinctly Satanic in the sense of this essay.565

Itis“Satanic”from the standpoint of orthodox Romanism, for it is owing to the prototype of that which became in time the Christian Devil—to the Radiant Archangels, Dhyân Chohans, who refused to create, because they wanted Manto become his own creatorand an immortal God—that men can reach Nirvâna and the Haven of heavenly Divine Peace.

To close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumâras, the“Virgin-Angels,”(to whom the Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, both belong,) the Divine“Rebels”—called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or“Deprived”—preferred thecurseofincarnationand the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery, even ifunconscious, of the beings who were evolved as Shadows out of their Brethren, through the semi-passive energy of theirtoo spiritualCreators. If“man's uses of life should be such as neither to animalize[pg 257]nor to spiritualize, but tohumanizeSelf,”566to do so, he must be bornhumannot angelic. Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogîs offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity, which was created god-like and perfect at first, and endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status, descend on our Globe, and take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahâyuga, thus exchanging their impersonal Individualities for individual Personalities—the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature wasKnowledgeandLove, has been construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows“the Rebel Angels hurled down from Heaven into the darkness of Hell”—our Earth. Hindû Philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that the Asuras, hurled down by Shiva, are only in anintermediate state, in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption from their wretched condition; but Christian Theology—claiming to be based on the rock of the divine love, charity, and justice of him it appeals to as its Saviour—to paradoxically enforce that claim, has invented the dreary dogma of Hell, that Archimedean lever of Roman Catholic philosophy.

Whereas Rabbinical wisdom—than which there is none more positive, materialistic, or grossly terrestrial, as it brings everything down to physiological mysteries—calls these Beings, the“Evil One”; and the Kabalists—Nahash,“Deprived,”as just said, and the Souls that have,after having been alienated in Heaven from the Holy One, thrown themselves into an Abyss at the dawn of their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to descend on Earth.567

And let me explain at once that our quarrel is not with theZoharor any other book of theKabalahin its right interpretation—for the latter is the same as our own—but only with the gross,pseudo-esoteric explanations of the later, and especially of the Christian Kabalists.

Says the Commentary:

Our earth and man [are] the products of the three Fires.

The names of these three answer, in Sanskrit, to the“Electric Fire,”the“Solar Fire,”and the“Fire produced by Friction.”Explained on the cosmic and human planes, these three Fires are Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root Groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary with the Schools, and—according to their applications—become the Upâdhis and the Vehicles, or the Noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are personified by the“three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendour”of Agni Abhimânin, the eldest son of Brahmâ, the Cosmic Logos, by Svâhâ, one of Daksha's568daughters. In the metaphysical sense, the“Fire by Friction”means the union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth“principle,”which thus are united or cemented together, the fifth merging partially into and becoming part of the Monad; in the physical, it relates to the“creative spark,”or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three Fires, whose names are Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Shuchi, were condemned, it is said, by a curse of Vasishtha, the great Sage,“to be born over and over again.”569This is clear enough.

Therefore, the Flames, whose functions are confused in the exoteric books, and who are called indifferently Prajâpatis, Pitris, Manus, Asuras, Rishis, Kumâras,570etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root-Race and thus find themselves“reborn over and over again.”In the Esoteric Doctrine they are generally named Asuras, or the Asura Devatâ or Pitar Devatâ (Gods), for, as said, they were first Gods—and the highest—before they became“No-Gods,”and had from Spirits of Heaven fallen into Spirits of Earth571—exoterically, note well, in orthodox dogma.

No Theologian or Orientalist can ever understand the genealogies of the Prajâpatis, the Manus, and the Rishis, or the direct connection of these—their correlation rather—with the Gods, unless he has the key to the old primitive Cosmogony and Theogony, which all nations originally had in common. All these Gods and Demi-gods are found reborn on Earth, in various Kalpas and in as various characters; each, moreover,having his Karma distinctly traced, and every effect assigned to its cause.

Before other Stanzas could be explained, it was, as may be seen, absolutely necessary to show that the Sons of“Dark Wisdom,”though identical with the Archangels which Theology has chosen to call the“Fallen,”are as divine and as pure, if not more pure, than all the Michaels and Gabriels so glorified in the Churches. The“Old Book”also goes into various details of Astral Life, which at this juncture would be quite incomprehensible to the reader. It must, therefore, be left for later explanation, and the First and Second Races will now receive only bare notice. Not so the Third Race—the Root-Race which separated into sexes, and which was the first to be endowed with reason; men evolvingpari passuwith the Globe, and the latter having“incrustated”more than a hundred millions of years before the first human sub-race had yet begun to materialize or solidify, so to say. But, as the Stanza has it:

The Inner Man [the Conscious Entity] was not.

This“Conscious Entity”Occultism says, comes from, nay, in many casesis, the very essence andesseof the high Intelligences, condemned, by the undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reïncarnate in this Manvantara.

(b) Shloka 39 relates exclusively to the racial divisions. Strictly speaking, Esoteric Philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For, while it assigns to humanity a oneness of origin, in so far that its Forefathers or“Creators”were all Divine Beings—though of different classes or degrees of perfection in their Hierarchy—it teaches that men were nevertheless born at seven different centres of the Continent of that period. Though all were of one common origin, yet, for reasons given, their potentialities and mental capabilities, outward or physical forms, and future characteristics, were very different.572As to their[pg 260]complexions, there is a suggestive allegory told inLinga Purâna. The Kumâras—the Rudra Gods, so called—are described as incarnations of Shiva, the Destroyer (ofoutward forms), called also Vâmadeva. The latter, as a Kumâra, the“Eternal Celibate,”the chaste Virgin Youth, springs from Brahmâ in each great Manvantara, and“again becomes four”; a reference to the four great divisions of the human Races, as regards complexion and type—and the three chief variations of these. Thus in the twenty-ninth Kalpa—in this case a reference to the transformation and evolution of the human form, which Shiva ever destroys and remodels periodically down to the great Manvantaric turning point, about the middle of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race—in the twenty-ninth Kalpa, Shiva, as Shvetalohita, the Root-Kumâra, from moon-coloured becomeswhite; in his next transformation, he isred(and in this the exoteric version differs from the Esoteric Teaching); in the third,yellow; in the fourth,black.

Esotericism now classes these seven variations, with their four great divisions, into only three distinct primeval Races—as it does not take into consideration the First Race, which had neither type nor colour, and a hardly objective, though colossal, form. The evolution of these Races, their formation and development, proceeded on parallel lines with the evolution, formation, and development of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much derived as it was determined by the climates of these zones. The Esoteric Teaching names three great divisions, namely, thered-yellow, theblack, and thebrown-white.573The Âryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are nevertheless all of one and the same stock, the Fifth Root-Race, and spring from one single Progenitor, called in Hindûexotericismby the generic name of Vaivasvata Manu; the latter, remember, being that Generic Personage, the Sage, who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago—at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the Great Continent of Atlantis,574and[pg 261]who is said to live even now in his mankind.575The light yellow is the colour of the firstsolidhuman race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root-Race—after its fall into generation, as just explained—bringing on the final changes. For, it is only at that period that the last transformation took place, which brought forth man as he is now, only on a magnified scale. This Race gave birth to the Fourth Race;“Shiva”gradually transforming that portion of Humanity which became“black with sin”into red-yellow, of which the red Indians and the Mongolians are the descendants, and finally into brown-white races—which now, together with the yellow races, form the great bulk of Humanity. The allegory inLinga Purânais curious, as showing the great ethnological knowledge of the ancients.

When reading of the“last transformation,”which is said to have taken place 18,000,000 years ago, let the reader at this juncture, consider how many millions more it must have required to reach that final stage. And if Man, in his gradual consolidation, developedpari passuwith the Earth, how many millions of years must have elapsed during the First, Second, and the first half of the Third Race. For the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached its last consolidated state. The Archaic Teachings, moreover, tell us that, during the middle period of the Lemuro-Atlantean Race, three and a half Races after the Genesis of Man, the Earth, Man, and everything on the Globe, were of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that have intervened since then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps toward our“dematerialization,”as the Spiritualists would say. The Earth, ourselves, and all things have softened since then—aye, even our brains. But it has been objected by some Theosophists that an ethereal Earth even some 15 or 20,000,000 years ago,“does not square with Geology,”which teaches us that winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and accumulated, etc.; that, in short, all natural causes now in operation were then in force,“in the very earliest ages of geological time, aye, that of the oldest palæozoic rocks.”To this the following answers are given. Firstly, what is the date assigned by Geology to these“oldest palæozoic rocks”? And secondly, why could not the winds blow, rain fall, and waves—of“carbonic acid”[pg 262]apparently, as Science seems to imply—break on the shore, on an Earth semi-astral,i.e., viscid? The word“astral”does not necessarily, in Occult phraseology, mean as thin as smoke, but rather“starry,”shining or pellucid, in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a viscid state, as just observed. But it is further objected:“How could an astral Earth have affected the other Planets in this System? Would not the whole process get out of gear now if the attraction of one Planet were suddenly removed?”The objection is evidently invalid, since our System is composed of older and younger Planets, some dead—like the Moon—others in process of formation, for all that Astronomy knows to the contrary. Nor has the latter ever affirmed, so far as we know, that all the bodies of our System have sprung into existence and developed simultaneously. The Cis-Himâlayan Secret Teachings differ from those of India in this respect. Hindû Occultism teaches that the Vaivasvata Manu Humanity is 18,000,000 and odd years old. We say, yes; but only so far asphysicalor approximately physical, Man is concerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root-Race. Beyond that periodMan, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300,000,000 years, for all we know;since we are not taught figureswhich are and will remain secret with the Masters of Occult Science, as justly stated inEsoteric Buddhism. Moreover, whereas the HindûPurânasspeak of one Vaivasvata Manu, we affirm that there were several, the name being a generic one.

We must now say a few more words on the physical evolution of man.

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