It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756
It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort....
But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and[pg 356]impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie....
If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.756
A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility ofourhistory and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows.
Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants.De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland![pg 360]It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775[pg 362]This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”78345.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!
De Mirville, in his enormous works,“Mémoires Adressées aux Académies,”carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of“historical evidence”that, in the days of“miracle,”both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the“Christ-stone,”or Christ-rock,“the spiritual Rock”that followed Israel,757“became a Jupiter-lapis,”swallowed by his father Saturn,“under the shape of a stone.”758We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the“Satanism”of idols, though a good deal might be said759on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our[pg 357]stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (a) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to“oracular”and“speaking”stones.
In theAchaicawe find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mightystupid“for worshipping stones.”But, having reached Arcadia, he adds:“I have changed my way of thinking.”760Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing—a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do—one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an“idiot”by modern Pausaniuses.
The reader is referred to theAcadémie des Inscriptions, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on“Stones”attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritês, the“Serpent-stone”and“Star-stone.”
The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761
The Ophitês is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and hasthe gift of speech; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a soundsimilar to the cry of a child. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.761
Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these“bétyles,”call them“animatedstones.”Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitês, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, deliveredin a small voice resembling a low whistling.762Arnobius, a holy man, who“from a Pagan had become one of thelights of the Church,”as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question,“which it answered occasionally in aclear and sharp small voice.”Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitês, we ask?
The famous stone at Westminster was calledliafail,“the speaking stone,”and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be[pg 358]chosen. Cambry, in hisMonuments Celtiques, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:763
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatumInvenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem.
Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Heræscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which“ran away when a hand approached them.”764
De Mirville—who seeks to justify theBible—enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of oldchior-gauror the“dance of giants”(fromcôr,“dance,”whencechorea, andgaur,“giant”)? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works asVoyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,765Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions—true forests of rocks—immense monoliths are found,“some weighing over 500,000 kilograms.”These“hanging stones”of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then,if not giants, could ever raise such masses—especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley—range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them.
Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when“weathering”—i.e., losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather—assumes this form; that, the“tors”in West England exhibit curious forms,[pg 359]also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the“rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers”—our statement will be justly denied, especially as“we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day.”Let us then examine the case.
First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over“from immense distances and with prodigious efforts.”766Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin“perhaps even African.”767
This is a strangecoincidence, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to aSorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer“an accursed Hamite.”768We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands—a giant in any and every case.769Says Cambry, naively:
Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770
Men have nothing to do with it ... for never couldhumanpower and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].770
Nevertheless, it washuman, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more“Nature”alone than God or Devil.
“Science,”having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of“blind forces,”is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland!
It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying:
I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.
I believed for a long time inNature, but Irecant, ... for chanceis unable to createsuch marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau.
Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of themovingrocks, or“rocking stones”situated on the slope of Golcar (the“Enchanter”) says:
The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771
The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.771
InStonehenge, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that:
Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.
Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or“sarsen”stone, locally called“grey wethers.”But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland.
To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in theRevue Archéologique, are worthy of being quoted:
Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772
Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the wordmaterialsseems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, theseimmense rockingstones, called sometimesrouters, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that“the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.”772
For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palæolithicsavages, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary[pg 361]mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum,“whence itran away several times, and so they were forced to weight it with lead.”773Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be“living, moving, speaking, and self-perambulating.”They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were calledrouters, from the word to“rout,”or“put to flight”; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called“madstones.”774
The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the“stones of truth.”775
This is history, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient“rocks of destiny”of older nations; and their motion, orrocking, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancientreading. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through“these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants,”that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny:
In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776
In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;776
and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that“a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist.”777Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode ofdivinationor oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.778As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy andmagic. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in theAntiquités de France(vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the“Field of Death,”or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say,“a prominence and a central tomb.”Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the“dwellings of the Râkshasas”or giants. Several stone circles,“considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers,”when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi,“were found to containhuman bones of a very large size.”779
Again, De Mirville is right in hisgeneralization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly[pg 363]witnesses to“great natural geological commotions”(Charton), and“the work of Nature”(Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just:
We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780
We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.780
This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediæval Theology initsinterpretations of the so-calledRevelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape—a transformation requiring millions of years—and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian—yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man—the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this“theory”than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time,as a distinct genusin the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life afully conscious man, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two“poor cousins”of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) Life on our Globe“is a logical postulate of scientific natural history,”but add that the rejection of a likespiritualinvolution, fromwithin without, of invisible subjective Spirit-Life—Eternal and a Principle in Nature—is more[pg 364]illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by“blind forces”inherent in Matter, without anyexternalhelp.
Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter namedorganic protein; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's“Requiem”; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc.,ad infinitum, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialisticsavantstell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown.
Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine.
Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781
Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradationson a preëxisting kind of being.781
Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there isnothingwithin him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that“organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally callartificial evolution”782—we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to“build out of dissociated elements complex combinations.”The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the[pg 365]“Progenitors”are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the“Empty Form.”But even this would be anartificial, not a natural man, for our“Progenitors”had, in the course of eternal evolution, to becomeGodsbefore they became Men.
The above digression—if indeed it is one—is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this.
It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any“psychic craze”to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer thanblindfaith.Universaltradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors—the Elohim—in the World's“Garden of Eden,”or“Delight.”783
45.The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a).
46.All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the Earth (b).
(a) As this subject—the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round—is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become“black with sin,”but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which—like everything else under our Sun—is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy.
(b) Thus the Giants perished—the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But“all holy saved,”and alone the“unholy”were“destroyed.”This was due, however, as much to theprevisionof the“holy”ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says:
Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to[pg 366]inhabit that Sacred Island—“from whence the last Saviour will come”—now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now—H. P. B.].It [mankind] became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race—the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians—alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and“were seen no more”...!