by

Madame

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Secret Instructions to Probators

of an Esoteric Occult School

By

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Published 1969

There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate itself, almost in every case, during the fifteen years that the T. S. has been in existence. As soon as any one pledges himself as a probationer, certain occult effects ensue.

Of these is the throwing outward of anything-intent in the nature of the man: his faults, habits, qualities, or subdued desires, whether good or evil, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance if a man is vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by Ativism or by Karmic heirloom, all these vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.

On the other hand, if he is good, generous, abstemious, or has any virtue hitherto latent and concealed to him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest.

Thus a civilized man who hates to be considered a saint, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to conceal true nature, whether base or noble.

Its action is the more-marked, the more earnest and sincere the desire of the candidate, and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge.

Therefore let all members of this School be warned and on their guard: for even during the three months before the exoteric teaching began, several of the most promising candidates failed ignominiously.

The ancient Occult axiom, KNOW THYSELF, must be familiar to every member of the School, but few, if any, have appreciated the real meaning of this wise exhortation of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity: astral, psychic and spiritual, to make you what you are?

Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Egos” with the One Universal Self.

For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical, such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed therefore, to begin the exoteric instruction by showing this connection in all directions with the worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Manasic, Psychic, Astral and Elemental.

Before, however, we can touch upon the higher worlds - Archetypal, Spiritual and Manasic - we must master the relations of the Seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakrita, or Malkuth, as in the Kabala, to the worlds or planes which immediately follow it.

It is clear that once the human body is admitted to have direct relation with such higher worlds, the specialization of the organs and parts of the body will necessitate all parts of the human organism without exception.

In the eyes of truth and nature no one organ is more noble or ignoble than

another. The Ancients considered as the most holy precisely those organs which we associate with feelings of shame and secrecy: for they are creative centers, corresponding to the Creative Forces of the Cosmos.

The Esotericists are therefore warned that unless they are prepared to take everything in the spirit of truth and nature, and forget the code of false propriety bred by hypocrisy and the shameful misuse of primeval functions, which were once considered Divine - they had better not study Esotericism.

“OM”, says the Aryan Adept, the Son of the Fifth Race, who with this syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, this conjuration or appeal to non-human PRESENCES.

“OM-MANI”, murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race; and after pausing he adds: “PADME-HUM”

This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning: “O the Jewel in the Lotus”. For although-literally, OM is a syllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means “in the Lotus” and MANI is any precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical meaning, are thus really correctly rendered.

In this, the most sacred of all Eastern formulas not only has every-syllable a secret potency producing a definite result, but the whole invocation has seven different meanings and can produce seven distinct results, each of which may differ from the others.

The seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation that is given to the whole formula and to each of the syllables; and even the numerical value of the letters is added to or diminished according as such or an-other rhythm is made use of.

Let the student remember that number underlies form, and number guides sound. Number lies at the root of the manifested Universe; numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations, of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and number and number's set limits to the formative hand of nature.

Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of every element and its sub-elements, learn their action and inter-action and behavior on the occult side of manifesting nature, and the law of correspondences will lead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life.

But to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical; i.e., you must study MAN, the microcosm - in this case as physical science does - inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals.

At the same time, however, since a keynote is required to analyze and comprehend any combinations of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the Platonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends from the Universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in Mathematics - the only exact science that exists in our day.

Let us study man, therefore; but if we separate him for, one moment from the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart from the “Heavenly Man” the Universe symbolized by Adam Kadmon or his equivalents in every philosophy, - we shall either land in black magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt.

Thus the mystic sentence, “OM MANI PADME HUM” when rightly understood, instead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, “O the Jewel in the Lotus,” contains a reference to the indissoluble union between man and the Universe, rendered in seven different ways and having the capability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought and action.

From whatever aspect we examine “it”, it means “I am that I am” “I am in thee and thou art in me.” In this conjunction and close union the good and pure man becomes a god. Whether consciously or unconsciously he will bring about, or innocently cause to happen, unavoidable results.

In the first case if an Initiate - of course an Adept of the right-hand Path alone is meant - he can guide a beneficent or protecting current, and thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations.

In the second case, although unaware of what he was doing, the good man becomes a shield to whomsoever he is with. Such is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can be done only when the actual potency and presence in sounds, and hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear.

The formula, “OM MANI PADME HUM” has been chosen as an illustration on account of its almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and of its potentiality when pronounced by man. Be careful, all you who read this: do not use these words in vain, or when vain anger, lest you become yourself the first sacrificial victim, or what is worse, endanger those whom you love.

The profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell you flippantly and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this sentence is the most powerful six-syllabed incantation and is said to have been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapani, the Tibetan Chenresi. (See Sec. Doc. Vol. II, p. 178-9 or new edition, p. 188-9).

But who is Padmapani in reality? Each of us must recognize him for himself whenever he is ready. Each of us has within himself the “Jewel in the Lotus,” call it Padmapani, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or by whatever name we may give to our Divine Self. The exoteric story runs thus:-

The Supreme Buddha, or Amitabha, they say, at the hour of the creation of man caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray emitted a sound and became Padmapani Bidhisattva. Then the Deity allowed to stream from his left eye a blue ray of light which, becoming incarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the minds of living beings.

Amitabha then called the combination, which forthwith took up its abode in man, “OM MANI PADME HUM” (‘`I am the Jewel in the Lotus and in it I will remain.”) Then Padmapani, “the one in the Lotus”, vowed never, to cease working until he had made humanity feel his presence in itself and thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. Be vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that in case of failure, he wished that his head would split into numberless fragments.

The Kalpa closed; but humanity felt him not within his cold, evil heart. Then Padmapani's head split and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re-formed the pieces into ten heads, three white, and seven of various colors. And since that day man has become a perfect number or TEN.

In this allegory the potency of Sound, Color, and Number is so ingeniously introduced as to veil the real esoteric meaning. To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy tales of creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and Divine, physical and magnetic meaning.

From Amitabha - non-colors or the white glory - are born the seven differentiated colors of the prism. These each emit a corresponding sound, forming the seven of the musical scale. As Geometry among the Mathematical Sciences is especially related to cosmogony, so the ten Jods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetractys, being made to symbolize the Macrocosm, Microcosm, or man, its image, has also to be divided into ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.

But before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondence between the Macrocosm and Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of explanation are necessary.

To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object:

(a) of proving man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature, and

(b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential Powers as exist: in the creative forces in Nature, - to such an one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between Colors, Sounds, and Numbers is the first requisite.

As already said, the secret formula of the far East, “OM MANI PADME HUM” is the one best calculated to make these correspondential qualities and functions clear to the learner.

Let those, I say again, who feel themselves too much the children of our age to approach the many mysteries which have to be revealed, in a truly reverent spirit, even though references be made to such subjects and objects as seem improper and, to use the correct term, indecent, in our modern day - let him abandon these teachings at once. For I shall have to use terms and refer, especially in the beginning, to the most secret organs and functions of the human body, the bare mention of which, is certain to provoke either feelings of disgust and shame or an irreverent laugh.

It is such feelings which have invariably led the generations of writers on symbolism and religions, ever since the day of Kircher, to materialize every natural emblem and ideograph, in their impure thought and finally to sum up all religions, Christian included, as phallic worship.

It is quite true that ever since the days of Pythagoras and Plato the exoteric cults began to deteriorate, until they debased the symbolism into the most shameful practices of our worship. Hence the horror and contempt, with which every true Occultist regards the so-called “personal God” and the exoteric ritualistic worship of the Churches - be they heathen or Christian.

And even in the days of Plato it was so. It was the persecution of the true ierophants and the final suppression of those mysteries which alone purified man's thoughts, and led to Tantrike (sexual worship) and through the for-getting of Divine Truth, to Black Magic, whether conscious or otherwise.

Numerous works have been written on this subject, especially in the later part of our century. Every student can read for himself such works as those of Payne, Knight, Higgins, Inman, Furlong and finally Hargrave Jennings' Phallicism and Allen Campbell's Phallic Worship. All are based on truth as far as the facts are concerned; all are erroneous and unjust in their ultimate conclusions.

The above words are addressed to students in order that - knowing how bitter some Occultists feel both the carnalizing Churches and materialistic thinkers who see phallicism in every symbol - they should not at the outset jump to the conclusion that, after all, the Occult Sciences likewise are based on nothing but a sexual foundation.

Man and woman in their physical aspects and corporeal envelopes are but higher animals, and the various parts of their bodies, if studied at all, must be referred to in terms comprehensible to the student. But the idea of the unclean acts with which some of these organs are connected, in their present conception of humanity, does not militate against the fact that each organ has been evolved and developed to perform its sex functions on six different planes of action, besides its seventh, the lowest and purely terrestrial function on the physical plane. This will suffice as an introduction to what follows.

In the allegory of Padmapani, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus, or the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10 as synthesizing the Unit, Man, are prominent, as I have already said.

It is on the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and with their mutual correspondence with sound or (words) and colors or rates of motion (represented in science by vibrations) that the progress of a student in OCCULTISM depends. Therefore we must begin at the first, initial word, “OM” or ‘‘AUM”. It represents:

OM is a “blind.” The sentence “Om Mani Padme Hum” is not a six - but a
seven - syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is double in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A-UM, it represents the forever-concealed primeval triune differentiation, not from but IN the ONE Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or the Tetractys in the physical world. It is the Unity-ray, or Atman.

It is Atman, the highest spirit in man, which, in conjunction with Buddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This Triad with its four lower human principles is, moreover, enveloped with an auric atmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future Embryo) by the albumen and shell. This, to the perceptions of the higher beings from other planes, makes of each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy.

To show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of Kosmos, a World, a planetary Being, or a child of sin and earth, a more definite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with philosophy will understand it better than others.

Who, having read, say the Vishnu or other Purana, is not familiar with the exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahma (male-female) in the egg of the world, Hyranyagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes, which in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the number seven and fourteen reappearing as occasion requires.

Without giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time immemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix, to the female uterus. It is written of the former: “Its womb is as vast as the Meru,” and “the future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its cavities, the continents, seas, and the mountains, the stars, planets, the gods, demons and mankind.” The whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoa-nut filled interiorly with pulp, and covered exteriorly with husk and rind. “Vast as Meru,” say the texts. “Meru was its amnion, and the other mountain was its chorion,” adds a verse in Vishnu Purana (1, 2 Vol. I, p. 40 of Wilson's translation, amended by Fitzward Hall.)

In the sane way is a man born in his mother's womb. As Brahma is surrounded, in exoteric traditions, by seven layers, within and seven layers without the mundane egg, so is the embryo - the first or the seventh layer, according to the end from which we begin to count. Just as Esotericism in this cosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology notes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely ignorant of its being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix.

These contents are:

• Embryo.

• Amniotic Fluid, immediately surrounding the Embryo.

• Annion, a membrane derived from the Foetus, which contains the fluid.

• Umbilical Vesical, which serves to convey nourishment originally to the Embryo and to nourish it.

• Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo in the form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the midst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves to conduct nourishment to the Embryo.

• Interspace between 3 and 7, (the Amnion and Chorian), filled with an albuminous fluid.

• Chorion, or outer layer.

Now each of these seven continents severally correspond with, and is formed after, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being, with which in their turn correspond the seven states of matter and all other farces, sensational and functional, in Nature.

• Embryo.

• Amniotic Fluid (Liquor Amnii) in which the Embryo floats.

• Amnion, a foetal membrane, surrounding the Embryo, and containing the Amniotic Fluid.

• Umbilical Vesicle, or yolk sac, containing the yolk, the source of nutrition of the early Embryo.

• Allantois, a vesicle proceeding from the extremity of the Embryo, spreading itself throughout the exterior of the Ovum

• Interspace between the outer layer of the Ovum and the Amnion, in which are contained the Umbilical Vesicle and Allantois.

• Chorion or false Amnion, formed by the outer layer of the Ovum.

Figure 1, is a representation of the Ovum before the amnion and Chorion are fully discernable; the Allantois (5) also in the first stages of its development.

Figure 2, shows the Allantois spreading itself throughout the Interspace (6) here the yolk sac has considerably shrunk.

Figure 3, shows the yolk sac still further shrunk; the Allantois has completely spread itself in the Interspace between the Arrnion and the Chorion (False Amnion), against the walls of the latter, which has grown in the form of ramified villi into the substance of the uterine mucus membrane. In later stages the latter forms the Placenta.

The following is a bird's-eye view of the seven correspondential contents of the Womb of Nature and of woman. We may contrast them thus:

Even in the evolution of the races we see the same order as in nature and man. (See Sec. Doc. Vol. 1, Part 1.)

Placental Animal-man become such only after the separation of the sexes in the Third Root race. In the physical-evolution, the placenta is fully formed and functional only after the 3rd month of uterine life.

Let us set aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the purely Divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless nature. It is called by its Sanskrit esoteric name in the Vedas, TAT (or THAT); a term for unknowable Rootless Root. If we do so, we may answer these seven questions of the Esoteric Catechism, thus:

As to the Universe the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, (the solar system and the earth, as the case may be), are Ten, why should we divide Man into seven “principles?” This is the reason why the perfect number ten is divided into two, a reason which cannot be given out publicly.

In their completeness; i.e., super-spiritually and physically, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in mind that I am now giving you the description of two opposite poles:

• the primordial triangle which, as soon as it has reflected itself in the “Heavenly Man” the highest of the lower seven disappears, returning into “Silence and Darkness,” and

• the astral paradigmatic man, whose Monad (atma) is also represented by a triangle, as it has become a tenary in conscious Devachanic interludes.

The purely terrestrial man being reflected in the Universe of matter, so to say, upside down, the upper triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the subjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides, is shifted in, the man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten containing in the archetypal world only ideative paradigmatic potentiality, i.e., existing in possibility, not in action, are in fact one.

The potency of formative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven forces or Rays, which become forthwith the Quarternary, the sacred Tetractys.

This process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical Triangle becomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male-female creator or generator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery above, a mystery below, truly. This is how the upper and highest, and lower and most animal stand in mutual relation.

1st. - Macrocosm and its 3, 7, or 10 Centers of Creative Force.

2nd - Microcosm (the Inner Man) and his 3, 7, or 10 Centers of Potential Forces.

3rd - Microcosm (the Physical Man) and his 10 Orifices, or Centers of Action.

And here a few words ought to be-said about the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. As those not pledged could hardly be entrusted with the whole truth, an approximate division as made only and given out. Esoteric Buddhism begins with Atma, the seventh, and ends with the physical body, the first. Now, neither Atma, which is no individual “principle” but a radiation from and One with the Unmanifested Logos; nor the body, which is the material rind or shell of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as “principles.”

Moreover, the chief “principle” of all, one hot even mentioned heretofore, is the “Luminous Egg” (Hiranyagarbha) or the Invisible Magnetic Sphere in which every man is enveloped. (So ere the animals, the plants, and even the minerals) Reichenbach never understood what he learned through sensitives and clairvoyants. It IS the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more. It is the direct emanation:

• From the Atmic Ray in its triple aspect of Creator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and

• from Buddhi-Manas.

The seventh aspect of this individual aura is the faculty of assuming the form of its body and becoming the “Radiant,” the Luminous Augoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form called Mayavi Rupa (Thought Body).

Therefore, as explained in the second face of the diagram (the'astral man), the Spiritual Man consist of only five principles, as taught by the Vedantins, (See Sec. Doc. Vol. I, p. 157 - new Edition I, 181, for the Vedantic exoteric enumeration) who substitutes tacitly for the physical this sixth, or Auric Body, and merge the dual Manas (the dual mind or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of five Koshas (sheaths or principles), and call Atma the sixth yet no “principle.” This is the secret of the late Subba Ror's criticism of the division of Esoteric Buddhism. But let the student now learn the true esoteric enumeration.

The reason why public rention of the Auric Body is not permitted is on account of its being so sacred. It is this body which at death assimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and becomes the vehicle of these spiritual principles, which are not objective, and, then, with the full radiation of Atma upon it, ascends as Manas Taijasi into the Devachanic state. Therefore, it is called by many names. It is the Sutratma, the silver “thread” which “incarnates” from the beginning of Manvantara, to the end strings upon itself the pearls of human existence in other words, the spiritual aroma of every personality it follows through the pilgrimage of life. (See Lucifer, Jan. 1889, Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After-Life.)

It is also the material from which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies, from the Augoeides and the Mayava Rupa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal particles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi and the upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of Atma, the Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness or, in the case of a full Adept, prefers the state of Nirmanakaya - that is, one who has so purified his whole system that he is above the Divine illusion of a Devachanee. Such an Adept remains in the Astral (invisible) plane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the possession of all his principles except the Kama Rupa and his physical body.

In the case of the Devachanee, the Linga Sarira - the alter ego of the body which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant aura is without - strengthened by the material particles which this aura leaves behind, remains close to the dead body and outside it, and soon fades away. In the case of the full Adept the body alone becomes subject to dissolution, while the center of that force which was the seat of desire and passion, disappears with its cause - the animal body.

But during the life of the latter all these centers are more or less active and in constant correspondence with their prototypes, the cosmic centers, and their microcosms, the principles. It is only through these cosmic and spiritual centers that the physical centers (the upper seven orifices and the lower triad) can benefit by their occult interaction, for these orifices, or openings, are channels conducting into the body the influences that the will of man attracts and uses, viz: the cosmic forces.

This will has, of course, to act primarily through the spiritual principles. To make this clear, let. us take an example. In order to stop pain, let us say, in the right eye, you have to attract to it the potent magnetism from the cosmic principle which corresponds to it, to this eye and also to Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will-effort, an imaginary line of communication between the right eye and Buddhi, locating the latter as a center in the same part of the head. This line, though you may call it “imaginary” is, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental eye and give it a shape and color, is truth as good as real. A rope in a dream is not, and yet it is. Moreover according to the prismatic color with which you endow your line, so will your influence act. Now Buddhi and Mercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow and radiant or golden colored. In the human system the right eye corresponds with Buddhi and Mercury, and the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer.

Thus, if your line is golden or silvery it will stop pain; if red, it will increase it, for the red is the color of Kama and corresponds with Mars. Mental and Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the effects without understanding the causes. Having formed by chance the secret of producing such results, owing to mental abstraction, they attribute them to their union with God - whether a personal or impersonal God, they know best, - whereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it may be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain wandering for a long tine to come.

Let not the students of the Esoteric School commit the same mistake. It had often been explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human principles - with the exception of the lowest material planes or worlds, and the physical body, which, as has been said, are no “principles,” can be located or thought of as being in space and time. As the former are seven in One, so are we seven in One, that same Absolute of the world, which is both matter and non-matter, spirit and non-spirit, being and non-being.

Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study the mysterics of SELF.

Plate I

In Plate I we see that Atma is no “principle,” but stands separated from the man, whose seven “principles” are represented as follows:

Remember that with our physical senses alone at our command, none of us can hope to reach beyond gross matter. We can do so, only through one or another of our spiritual senses, either by training, or if one is a born seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an Adept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will, through his ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he sees in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens of those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse - as witness Swedenborg and others.

These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature and in ourselves. Physically, through invisibility, the human Auric Envelope (the Amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers, just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this aura which according to our rental and physical state of purity or impurity either opens to us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything but this three dimensional world of matter.

Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane science), and also of our seven states of consciousness - viz:

• waking;

• waking-dreaming;

• natural sleeping;

• induced or trance sleep;

• psychic;

• super-psychic; and

• purely spiritual

- corresponds with one of the seven cosmic planes, develops and uses one of the super-senses, and is connected directly, in its use on the terrestric-spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine center of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of one of the Sacred Planets. (See Sec. Doc. Vol. I, p. 572-4 - New Edition, I, 626-28.)

These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were called Mystai (the veiled), seeing that they were allowed to perceive things only through a mist, as it were “with the eyes closed;” while the Initiates or “Seers” of the Greater Mysteries were called Epoptai (those who see things unveiled).

It was the latter only who were taught the true Mysteries, of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between the twelve signs (two secret) and the ten human orifices. The latter are now of course ten in the female, and only nine in the male, but this is merely an external difference. In the second volume of the Sec. Doc. it is stated that until the end of the Third Root Race (when androgynous man separated into male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first potentially, then functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows this.

For instance, the only opening formed at first is the buccal cavity, a “cloaca” communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestines. This becomes later the mouth and the posterior orifice; the Logos differentiating and emanating gross matter on a lower plane, in occult parlance.

The difficulty which some students will experience in reconciling the correspondence between the Zodiac and the orifices can be easily explained. Magic is coeval with the Third Root Race, which began by creating through Kryasakti and ending by generating the. species in the present way. (See Sec. Doc. I, p. 207, et seq. F II, passim. new edit. I, p. 228).

Woman, being left with the full or perfect number of the Cosmos - 10 - the Divine Number of Jehovah, was deemed higher and more spiritual than man.

In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an article that the woman should be the “lady of the lord,” and real lord over him. The husband pledged himself to be “obedient to his wife” for the production of alchemical results such as the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone, for the spiritual help of the woman was needed by the Alchemist. But woe to the Alchemist who should take this in the dead-letter sense of physical union. Such sacrilege would become black magic and be followed by certain failure. The true Alchemist of old took aged warren to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones. And if any of them happened to be married they treated their wives before and during operations as sisters.

The error of crediting the ancients with only knowing ten of the Zodiacal signs is explained in ‘Isis Unveiled' (Vol. II, p. 456,461, 465 et. seq.). The ancients did know of twelve, but viewed these signs differently from ourselves. They took neither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration, but regarded them as two in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the primeval dual man and his separation into sexes.

During the reformation of the Zodiac, Libra was added as a twelfth sign, though it is simply an equilibrating sign, at the turning point - the mystery of separated man. Let the student learn all this well. Meanwhile let us recapitulate what has been said: - (1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God, - in other words, “One with his Father in Heaven” just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say. As many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet these Gods are in reality One, for at the end of every period of activity, they are withdrawn like rays of the setting Sun into the Parent luminary, the Non-Manifested Logos, which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute. Shall we call these “Fathers” of ours, whether individually or collectively and under any circumstances, our personal God? Occultism answers, Never.

All that an average man can know of his “Father” is what he knows of himself through and within himself. The Soul of his “Heavenly Father” is incarnated in him. This Soul is himself, if he is successful in assimilating the

Divine Individuality while in his physical animal shell, as the Spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our prayers and supplications are vain unless to potential words we add potent acts, and make the aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and Divine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words become as it were an extraneous potency. Thus have the Initiates, Saints, and very hold and pure men been enabled to help others as well as themselves in the hour of need, and produce what are foolishly called “miracles,” each by the help and with the aid of the God within himself, which he alone has enabled to act on the outward plane.

(2) The word Aum or Om, which corresponds to the upper triangle, if pronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out or awaken, not only the less exalted potencies residing in the planetary spaces and elements, but even his Higher Self, the “Father” within him. Pronounced by an averagely good man, in the correct way, it will strengthen his morality, especially if between two “Aums” he meditates intently on the Aum within him, concentrating his attention upon the ineffable glory. But woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far reaching sin; for he will thereby only attract to his own impure photosphere invisible forces and presences which could not otherwise break through the Divine envelope.

All the members of the E. S., if earnest in their endeavor to learn, are invited to pronounce the Divine Word before going to sleep and the first thing upon waking. The right accent, however, should be first obtained from one of the officers of the E. S. T.

AUM is the original Amen. Now Amen is not a Hebrew term, but like the word Hallelujah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees. The latter word is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninevan relics. Amen is not “so-be-it” or “verily,” but signified in hoary antiquity almost the same as AUM.

The Jewish Tanain (Initiates) used it for the same reason as the Aryan. Adepts use AUM, and with a like success, the numerical value of AMEN in Hebrew letters being 91, the same as the full value of YHVH, (Jod-Hovah), or male-female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in reality and literally, “giving being” and receiving life, 26, and ADONIA, 65 or 91. Both words mean the affirmation of being, or existence of the sexless “Lord” within us.

(3). Esoteric Science teaches us that every sound in the, visible world awakens its corresponding sound in the invisible realm, and arouses to action sons force or other on the occult side of nature. Moreover, every sound corresponds to a number and color (a potency) spiritual, psychic, or physical, and to a sensation on some plane. All those find an echo in every one of the so-far developed elements and even on the terrestrial plane, in the lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting them to action.

Thus a prayer, unless pronounced mentally and addressed to one's “Father” in the silence and solitude of one's “closet,” must have more frequent disastrous than beneficial results, seeing that the masses are entirely ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce. To produce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by “one who knows how to make himself heard in the silence,” when it is no longer a prayer but becomes a command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the public synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a liar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be see praying, by people; he had a motive we must suppose; the same motive which prompts the experienced Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as then, from entering churches, seance-rooms, etc.,.. unless they are in sympathy with the crowd.

There is one piece of advice to be given to beginners who cannot help going into crowds, one which may appear superstitious but which, in the absence of occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well Doan to good astrologers, the days of the week are not in the order of those planets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the protection (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and every day, as correctly ascertained by Dion Cassius, received the name of the planet which ruled and protected its first portion. Let the student protect himself from the “Powers of the Air” (Elementals) which throng public places, by wearing either a ring containing some Jewel of the color of the presiding planet, or else of the metal sacred to it. But the best protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire to benefit all humanity.

In the accompanying diagram, the days of the week do not stand in their usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as determined by the order of the colors in the solar spectrum and the corresponding colors of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they tried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for the order of the days of the week, as it now stands does not follow the order of the planets.

Now the ancients arranged the planets in the following order: - Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the protection of a planet. In course of time each day came to be called by the name of that planet which ruled the first portion - the morning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as follows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the 7th, so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn, e.g., beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was ruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. It should be remembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a sacred planet.

The present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the ancients and Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the four lunar phases is as old as the world, and originated with the people who reckoned time by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it. Till the days of the Caesars there is no trace of a week of seven days among any nation except the Hindus. From India it passed to the Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of eight days, and the Athenian of ten. (Notice sur le Calendrier, J. H. Ragson).

Thus one of the numberless contradiction and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian septenary week of the lunar reckoning and the preservation at the same time of the mythological names of the planets. Nor do modern astrologers give the correspondences of the days and the planets and their colors correctly; while Occultists can give good reasons for every detail of their own tables of colors, etc., it is doubtful whether the astrologers can do the same.

These correspondences are from the Objective, Terrestrial Plane. ATMAN is no number, and corresponds to no visible planet, for it proceeds from the Spiritual Sun: nor does it bear any relation either to Sound, Color or the rest for it includes them all. As the Human Principles have no number per se, but only correspond to Number, Sound, Color, etc., they are not enumerated here in the order used for exoteric purposes.

To close this first instruction let re say to those who have honored me with their confidence by taking the pledge must in all necessity be separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite rid themselves of the usual doubts, but who long-to-ascertain how much truth there may be in the claims . of Occultists; and those who, having freed themselves from the trammels of materialism and relativity, feel that real and true bliss must be sought only in the knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu philosophers called the Brahma Vidya, and the Buddhist Arhat, the realization of Adibuddha, the primeval wisdom.

Let the former pick out and study from the Instructions only those explanations of the phenomena of life which profane science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they will find at the end of a year or two, that they will have learned more than all their universities and colleges can teach them. As to the sincere believers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge.

True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way except through the region of higher mind, the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all pervading Absoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human minds, who live that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which shines on the ocean of Maya, or of temporary delusions and lasts for but one incarnation. Those laws are necessary for the life and welfare of the physical man alone. He has chosen a pilot who directs him through the shoals of one existence,