Strictly Private and Confidential

Instruction no. II - a

In view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present instruction will begin with an explanation of some points in which there was an appearance of contradiction.

Astrologists, of whom there are many among the Esotericists, are likely to be puzzled by some of the statements distinctly contradicting their teachings; whilst those who know nothing of the subject may perhaps find themselves opposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric systems of the Kabala and Astrology. For, let it be distinctly known, nothing of that which is printed broadcast, and available to every student in public libraries or museums, is really esoteric, but is either mixed with deliberate “blinds” or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete glossary of occult terms.

The following teachings. and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the student in assisting him to formulate the teachings given in the preceding instructions.

In Diagram I, it will be observed that 3, 7, and 10 centers are respectively as follows:

The 3 pertains to the Spiritual World of the Absolute, and therefore to the three higher principles in man.

The 7 belongs to the Spiritual, psychic and physical worlds and to the body of man. Physics, Metaphysics and Hyperphysics are the triad that symbolizes man on this plane.

The 10, or the sum total of these, is the Universe as a whole, in all its aspects, and also its Microcosm - Man, with his ten orfices.

Laying aside for the moment, the Higher Decad (Kosmos) and the Lower Decad (Man), the first three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit, Soul, and Auric Envelope of the Human Being, as well as to the Higher Super-sensual World. The lower four, or the four aspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole being synthesized by the Absolute.

If these three discrete or distributive degrees of being be conceived, according to the symbology of all Eastern religions, as contained in one Ovum or EGG, the nacre of that EGG will be Swabhavat, or the ALL-Being on the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither center nor periphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a definition, the natural consequence of the limitations of human thought.

In Diagram II, as already stated therein, no notice need be taken of the numbers used in the left-hand column, as these refer only to the Hierarchies of the Colors and Sounds on the metaphysical plane and are not the characteristic numbers of the human principles or the planets. The human principles elude enumeration, because each man differs from every other, just as two blades of grass on the whole earth are absolutely unlike. Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and the natural predominance of one principle over another.

With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, if he be a bestial sensualist, the Lower Manas. With one, the physical body, or perhaps Prana (the life-principle) will be on the first and highest plane, as would be the case in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality; with another it may cone as the sixth or seventh downward. Again, the colors and metals corresponding to the planet and human principles (as will be observed) are not those known exoterically to modern astrologists and Western Occultists.

Let us see whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the correspondences of planets, metals and colors. And here we are reminded of the modern Orientalist, who, judging on appearances, credits the ancient Akkadians (and also the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Hindus) with the crude notion that the Universe, and in like manner, the Earth, was like an inverted bell-shaped bowl! This he demonstrated by pointing to the symbolical representations of some Akkadian inscriptions and to the Assyrian carvings. It is, however, no place here to explain how mistaken is the Assyrialogist, for all such representations are simply symbolical of the Khargak-Kurra, the World Mountain of Meru, and relate only to the North Pole, the land of the Gods. (See Sec. Doc. II, p. 357 - new edit. II; p. 375.)

Now the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching about the planets and their correspondences as follows:

This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, with the exception of the order of the days of the week, of which, by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, they have, made a sore mess, as has been already shown in Instruction I. This is the Tolemaic geocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following diagram, showing our earth in the center of the Universe and the Sun a planet, the fourth in number:

And if the Christian Chronology and order of the days of the week are being daily denounced as being based on an entirely wrong astrological foundation, it is high time to begin to reform also in Astrology built on such lines and coming to us entirely from the Chaldean and Assyrian exoteric mob.

But the correspondences given in our Instructions are purely esoteric. For this reason it follows that when the planets of the solar system are named or symbolized (as in Diagram II) it must not be supposed that the planetary bodies themselves are referred to except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something. Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye, it does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but that both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man derives his spiritual soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Manasa Putra, the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or angels) ruling and presiding over the planet Mercury.

In the sane way Venus, Manas, and the left eye are set down as correspondences. Exoterically there is, in reality, no such association of physical eyes and physical planets; but esoterically there is; for the right eye is the “Eye of Wisdom”, it corresponds magnetically with that occult center in the brain which we call the “Third Eye” (See Sec. Doc. II, 302 et. seq.) while the left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty.

The Kabalistic triangle of Kether, Chocmah and Binah shows this, Chocmah and Binah, or Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and the Mother, or again, the Father and Son, are on the same plane and react mutually on one another.

When the individual consciousness is turned inward a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated man this conjunction is permanent, the higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, and the Soul, or rather the Spirit, which should not be confounded with Atma (the Super-Spirit), is then said to have the “Single Eye.” Esoterically, in other words, the “Third Eye'' is active. Now Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, and thus their conjunction in man on the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely Spiritual man corresponds directly with the higher “colored circles,” the Divine Prism which emanates from the One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the Sephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. And these “Voices” are lower than the “Colors” for they are the seven lower Sephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the Zoher (II, 81,6) shows, and even the OLD TESTAMENT also. For, when properly translated, verse 18 of Chap. 20, Exodus, would read:- “And the people saw the Voices,” or (Sounds) are the Sephiroth. (Franck's Die Kabala, p. 314 et.seq.)

In the same way the right and left nostril's, into which is breathed the “Breath of Life,” (Gen. II, 7), are here said to correspond to the Sun and Moon, as Brahma-Prajapati and Vach, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quarternary, viz: the two eyes and two nostril, Mercury and Venus, Sun and Moon, constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian Angels of the Four Corners of the Earth.

It is the same in the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, which, however, adds that the Sun is not a planet, but the central star of our system, and the Moon a dead planet, from which all the principles are gone; and both being substitutes, the one for an invisible inter-Mercurial planet and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the four Maharajahs of the Sec. Doc. (vol. I, p. 122 - new edit. I, 147) the “Four Holy Ones” connected with Karma and Humanity, Kosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, or its substitute, Michael; Moon, or substitute, Gabriel; Mercury, or Raphael; and Venus, Uriel. It need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves being only physical symbols, are not often referred to in the exoteric system, but, as a rule, their cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual forces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven physical planets which are the lower Sephiroth of the Kabala and our triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized or rather personified, by the upper triad or Sephirothal Crown. All this will be demonstrated. Meanwhile we point out for confirmation Origen's works, who says that “the seven ruling daimons” (Genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the Lion-Like) the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel etc.; and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Porphyry, or Porphyry's Tree, as it is usually called.

Then, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to: the psychic principles in Diagram I, appear the reverse of those in Plate I. This, again, is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary, changing with every school. Some schools count three, some four, some six, and others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. In Plate I, the numbers of the principles disagree with the numbers used in Diagram I, simply because the first are those hitherto used in the semi-exoteric teachings of Theosophy, for instance in Esoteric Buddhism. As said in the Sec. Doc. Vol. I, p. 122; new edit. 1, 147 - since the fourteenth century the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments, one for the higher Lanoos or higher Chelas the other for the outer circle, or lay chelas.

Mr. Sinnett was distinctly told in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he “could not be taught” the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged disciples of the Inner Circle. Therefore it would perhaps simplify matters if each student would add to the exoteric enumeration of the Order Plate I the secret one as given in Diagram II. But even that would require special study. The numbers and principles do not go in regular sequence, like the skins of an onion, but the student must work out for himself the number appropriate to each of his principles, when the time comes for him to enter upon practical study.

The above will suggest to the student the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their appropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by association with their corresponding centers of action, colors, sounds, etc., until these become inseparable. The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in the Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, leads to another apparently perplexing contradiction, though it, is really none at all.

In Plate I, it will be seen that the principles numbered 3 and 2 viz: Linga Sarira and Prana, or Jiva, stand in the reverse order to that given in Diagram I. A moment's consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, as printed in Plate I, and the esoteric order given in Diagram I. In Diagram I, Linga Sarira is defined as the vehicle of Prana or Jiva, the life-principle, and as such must, on the esoteric plane, of necessity, be inferior to Prana, and superior to the exoteric enumeration in Plate I would suggest.

The colored part of the Plate is profoundly esoteric, but the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration has been used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one upon the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of one or another principle, and therefore differing in every man.

The Linga Sarira is the double, or protoplasmic archetype of the body, which is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by the conception of Prana, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian Mythology by the birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although like all sacred Pithoi, this has become a three-fold spiritual, and a seven-fold psycho-physical application.

To close the subject, Prana the life principle, can, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Each number of the seven would naturally thus be applicable to Prana-Jiva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not through or by number, but geometrically, i.e., following the proportions of numbers.

To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set them down here after the manner of Diagram II, in relation to their dominion over the human body, colors, metals etc., and explain at the same time why genuine Esoteric Philosophy differs from the Astronomical chime.

1. Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.

2. Esoterically, light blue, as a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the color purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic color contains a great deal, of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the color of the lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the lower.

3. Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post-Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true color of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorption of vapors (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Maya on our earth.

4. Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive, color. Manas being dual in its nature, as it is a sidereal symbol, the planet Venus, which is both the morning and evening star, the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark blue and green.

Green, the lower Manas, resembles the color of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified color of the heaven or sky, to denote the upper tendency of Manas toward Buddhi, to the heavenly spiritual soul. This color is obtained from the indigo ferra tinctoria, a plant of the highest occult properties in India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper.

This is shown by the indigo showing a coppery luster, especially when rubbed on any hard surface or substance. Another property of the dye is that, it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the East without being based on a logical and demonstrable reason. Therefore Eastern symbologists from the earliest ages have connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with the dark blue (Newton's indigo), or true blue, free from green and the other with pure green.

5. Esoterically, yellow, because the color of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun, in distance, as it does in color. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the end of the Third Race.

6. Esoterically, violet, because perhaps violet is the color assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double - the aerial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower animal Aanas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colors from its end up to the green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a color, the most refrangible of all the principles and colors. Beside which there is the same great occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colors and sounds. In clearer words there exists the same law of relation between the Earth and the Moon, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon.

* * *

Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the exoteric Kabalistic Astrology is by this method distributed over the entire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of color from black to white; but that esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as colors, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural colors of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to the earth and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of our physical organs. White is the absence of all colors, and therefore no color; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative aspect of white.

The seven prismatic colors are direct emanations from the Seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon the relation to one of the human principles. Each prismatic color is called in Occultism the “Father of the Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word of Logos of its Father Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every color with a definite sound, a fact well recognized in modern science, e.g., Francis Galton's Nature and Nurture. But black and white are entirely negative colors, and have no representatives in the World of subjective being.

Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the planetary bodies in the human brain also is defined thus: there are seven primary groups of faculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh through the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct esoterically. But when it is further said that Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury, the intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun, the governing faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious and the Moon, the instincts; - we say that the explanation is incomplete and misleading. For in the first place, the physical planets can rule only the physical body and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic and the spiritual faculties are influenced by the Occult causes of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies or the Spiritual Rulers of the planets and not by the planets themselves.

This scale, as given in Diagram II, leads the student to perceive in the following order:

• color;

• sound;

• the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., the Metallic Elementals;

• these materialize again into the physical metals;

• then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into the plants, giving them color and smell, both of which “properties” depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time;

• from plants it passes into the animal;

• and finally culminates in the “principles” of man.

Thus we see the Divine Essence of our progenitors in heaven circling through seven stages; spirit becoming matter, and matter returning to spirit. As there is sound in nature which is inaudible, so there is color which is in-visible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in its incessant work of transformation, produces color, sound, and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms and molecules.

Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the synthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is that which the Chinese call the “Great Tone” or Kung.' It is, even by scientific confession the actual tonic of nature, held by musicians to be the middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the voice of nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage of a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city; in the wind, the tempest, and the storm; in short, in every-thing in nature which has a voice or produces sound. To the hearing of all who harken, it culminates in a single definite tone of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F, or Fa, of the diatonic scale.

From these particulars that wherein lies the difference between the exoteric and esoteric nomenclature and symbolism will be evident to the student of Occultism. In short, Kabalistic Astrology as practiced in Europe, is the semi-esoteric secret science, adapted for the outer and not the inner circle. It is, furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to conceal the real truth.

While it symbolizes and adopts its correspondences on the mere appearance of things, esoteric philosophy, which concerns itself preeminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols as cover the whole ground, i.e., such symbols as yield a spiritual as well as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has done excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the existence of a secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of medieval ages and their dark bigtry up to the present day, when all danger has disappeared.

The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric radii, or the distance of their several orbits from the Earth as a center, viz: - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. In the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial triad of Supreme Power in the physical manifested Universe, of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial Quarternary ruling over all natural and physical evolutions of the seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass, and elements thus:

But the Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to preface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of the real meaning of the word Magic.

Esoteric Science is, in reality the knowledge of our relations with, and in, Divine Magic (magic, Magic, means in its spiritual, secret sense the “Great Life” or Divine Life in Spirit. The root is magh, as seen in the Sanscrit Mahet, Zend, Maz, Greek, Mehas, and Latin, magnus, all signifying Great) inseparableness from our Divine selves - the latter meaning of this most misunderstood word “magic.” Many are those eager and willing to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the science itself. Now very few of our American and European students can derive benefit from Sanscrit words or even their translations, as these translations are for the most part merely blinds to the uninitiated. I therefore propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from Neo-Platonic works. These are accessible in translations; and in order to threw light upon that which has hitherto been full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus the Gnosis, both pre-Christian and post-Christian, will serve our purpose admirably.

There are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus (for further information on this subject students are referred to Simon Magus, an essay, written by G. R. S. Mead) and little that is told about him in the Acts; but very few who have even heard of the many motly, fantastic and contradictory details which tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and of his death is to be found only in prejudiced, half fantastic and contrary details which are in the works of the Church Fathers, such as Iranoeus, Epiphanius and St. Justin and especially in the anonymous Philosophumena. Yet he is an historical character, and the appelation of “Magus” was given to him and was accepted by all his contemporaries, including the heads of the Christian Church, as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he possessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine) or a black (infernal) magician. In this respect, opinion has always been made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of the Chronicler. It is in his system and that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term “magic” meant for Initiates in those days.

Simon, as all other great Gnostics, taught that our world was created by the lower angels, whom he called Aeons. He mentions only three degrees of such, because It was and is useless, as explained in the Sec. Doc., to teach anything of the four higher ones, and he therefore begins at the planes of globes A and C. His system is as near to occult truth as any, so that we may examine it, as well as his own and Menander's claims about “magic,” to find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all manifested creation was Fire. It is, with him as with us, the Universal principle, the Infinite Potency born from the concealed Potentiality.

This Fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was dual, having a manifested and a concealed or secret side.” The secret side of the Fire is concealed in its evident (or objective) side” he writes (Philosophumena, vi, 9) which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of stating Plato's idea of the Intelligible (Noeton) and sensible (Aistheton), and Aristotle's teaching on the Potency (Dynamic) and the act (Energeia).

For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon was perfect intelligence. Fire contains all. And thus all the parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, are susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our teaching of the manifested Logos, and these. parts in their primordial emanations are our Dyan Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher Aeons. This “Fire” is the symbol of the active and living side of Divine nature. Behind it lay “Infinite Potentiality,” which Simon named “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” or permanent stability and personified immutability.

From the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through thought begetting the Act. The objective side of Fire being the Father.

Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair, a couple), for they emanated two-by-two, one as an active, and the other as a passive Aeon. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: “Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reason and Reflection,” (Nous, Epinoia: Phone, Onoma; Loginsnos, Enthumesis), the first in each pair being male. From these primordial six emanated the six Aeons, of the middle world. Let us see what Simon himself says: “Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire Infinite Potency, and not in the Act. That Potency had to be called forth (or conformed) through an image in order that it should manifest in all its essence, virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated potency become similar to the parent, the Eternal Infinite Potency. If, on the contrary, it remained simply potentially in the six Potencies, and failed to be conformed through an image, then the Potency would not pass into action, but would get lost” (Philosophusmena vi, 12). In clear terms, it would become atrophied, as the modern expression goes.

Now, what do these words moan if not, to be equal in all things to the Infinite Potency the Aeons had to imitate it in its action, and becoming themselves, in their turn, emanative principles, as was their parent, giving life to new beings, and becoming Potencies in actu themselves? To produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyasakti (See Sec. Doc. sub voce - under Word) is the direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own action. That power, then is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial Principle, the Infinite Power or Potency.

Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six Aeons, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into act, and emanated, in their turn, six secondary Aeons, which were each synthesized by their respective parent. In the Philosophumana we read that Simon compared Aeons to the “Tree of Life.” “It is written”, said Simon in Revelation (“The Great Revelation” He Megale Apophasis), of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author, “that there are two ramifications of the universal Aeons, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sige (Silence). One of these (series of Aeons) appears from above. This is the Great Potency, Universal Mind (or Divine Ideation), the Mahet of the Hindus; it orders all things and is a male. The other is from below, for it is the Great (unmanifested) Thought, the female Aeon, generated in all things.

“These (two kinds of Aeons) corresponding (literally standing opposite each other in rows or pairs) with each other, have conjunction and manifest the middle distance (the intermediate sphere, or plane), the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end.” (Philosophumena, vi, 18). This female “Air” is our Ether, or the Kabalistic Astral Light. It is, then, the Second World of Simon, born of FIRE, the principle of everything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the intelligent, Divine Flame, Omnipresent and Infinite. In Simon's system, this SECOND WORLD was ruled by a Being or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and bad. This Parent-Being, like the primordial Infinite Potency, is called also “that which has stood, stands, and will stand,” so long as the manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated in actu and became like its own parent, it was not dual or androgyne.

It is the Thought that emanated from it (Sige) which became as itself (the parent), having become like unto its own image (or antetype) the second had now become in its turn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As Simon has it: “It (the Parent or Father) was one. For having it (the Thought) in itself, it was not alone.” “It was not, however, first, though it was pre-existing; but manifesting itself to itself, from itself it became the second (or dual). Nor was it called Father before it (the Thought) gave. it that name. As, therefore, itself developed itself, by itself, that is (hid) that potency (in itself). And the Potency (Dunamis, viz: Nous) and Thought (Epinoia) are male-female whence they correspond with one another - for Potency differs in no way from Thought - being one. “So from the things above is found Potency, and from those below, Thought. It comes to pass, therefore, that that which is manifested from them, although being one, yet is found to be two-fold, the androgyne having the female in itself. So is Mind in Thought, things inseparable from each other, which, though being one, yet are found dual.” (Ibid. vi. 18).

“He (Simon) calls the first Syzygy of the six potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth; the male looks down from on high and take s thought for his Syzygy (or Spouse), for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to the Earth.” (Ibid vi, 13). Siman's Third World with its third series of six. Aeons and the seventh, the Parent, is emanated in the same way. It is this same note which runs through every Gnostic System - gradual development downward into matter by similitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial Occultism, or Magic.

With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency, synthesizing all, is the Spirit brooding over the dark waters of undifferentiated space, Narayana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in Christianity. But while in the latter the conception is conditioned and dwarfed by limitations necessitating faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious.

Iranoeus supplements the information on the further development, of these six Aeons. We learn from him that Thought, having separated itself from its parent, and knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to know, proceeded on to the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each of such Worlds consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming Androgyne), to create inferior Hierarchies, Angels, and Powers, Dominions and Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather emanated out of their own essence our world with its men and beings over which they watch.

It thus follows that every rational being - called Man on Earth - is of the same essence and possesses all the attributes of the higher Aeons, the primordial Seven. It is for him to develop, “with the image before him of the highest,” by imitation in actu, the Potency with which the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed. Here we may again quote with advantage from the Philosophumena: ,- “So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable (principle) is conceived in everything, not in act. This is that which has stood, stands and will stand,' Viz: that which has streams of the waters generated in an image; that which has streams of the waters generated in image; that which will stand above, beside the blissful Infinite Potency, if it makes itself like to this image. For three, he says, are they that stand, and without these three Aeons of stability there is no adornment of the generable which, according to them (the Simonians), is borne on the water and being molded according to the similitude is a perfect and Celestial (Aeon), in no manner of thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say: ‘I and I'. This he says is the one Potency, divided into, above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking itself, finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse, daughter, and son, one, for it is the Root of All.”

Thus of this triple Aeon, we learn the first exists as “that which has stood, stands, and will stand,” or the uncreate Power, Atman; the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated Substance, or Buddhi), from it through the image of the former reflected in those waters, the image of him, or It, which moves on them; the Third World (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that Eternal and Omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For, “all that is Eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in everything that is,” if only potentially, not actually.

“And everything is that image, provided the lower image (man) ascends to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought.” Matter as Substance is Eternal and has never been created. Therefore, Simon Magus, with all the great Gnostic teachers and Eastern Philosophers, never speaks of its beginning. “Eternal Matter” receives its various forms in the lower Aeon from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why, then, should not Man, the direct heir of the Highest Aeon, do the same, by potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit. This is Kryasasakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, - from invisible, indestructible matter.

Truly, says Jeremiah, - Chap. 1,5 - quoting the “Word of the Lord,” “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;” for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Aeon, or Divine Man, both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as Occult as what is given in Instruction No. I. For the terrestrial Paradise is the womb, says Simon (Philosophumena vi. 14), Eden, the region surrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; this Cord is divided into four Heads, the stream that flowed out of it, the four canals which served to carry to the foetus nutrition, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to Simon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta. (At first there are the omphalomessentric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the “vascular area” or the Umbilical Vesical from which they proceed).

As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord, ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the foetus, and two Hypogastric or Umbilical arteries which take up the used up blood from the foetus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus science corroborates the knowledge and wisdom of ancient Occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology.

While this Instruction was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson (E.S.T.) which were printed in 1884 and 1888, in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the foetal nutrition as advanced in Instruction I. Briefly, the foetus is nourished by Osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by mans of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about, the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any of our members care to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson's Remarks on the nutrition of the Foetus (Wood and Co., N.Y.).

The above is given for the elucidation of that .which is to follow. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were, instructed by him in Magic. They made use of so-called “exorcisms” (as in the New Testament), incantations, philters, believing in dreams, and visions, and producing them at will; and finally forced the lower order of spirits to obey them. Simon Magus was called “the Great Power of God,” literally “the Potency of the Deity which is called Great.” That which was then called Magic we now call Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power, and Knowledge. His direct disciple, Menander, was also a great Magician. Says Iranoeus, among other writers: “The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.”

Thus both Master and pupil are shown to have attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, powers which can be obteined only through “the help of the devil,” as Christians claim; and yet their “works” were identical with those spoken of in the New Testament, where in such phenomenal results are called Divine Miracles, and are, therefore, believed in and, accepted as coming from and through God. But the question is, have these so-called “miracles of the Christ” and Apostles ever been explained any more than the magical achievement of so-called sorcerers and magicians? I say, never!

We Occultists do not believe in supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word “miracle.” Let us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic. The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely Divine or terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought).

Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had net in a house of ill-fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine: Thought?” The lower angels, Simon is made to say, in Philosophumena, or the Third Aeons, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them, had the vice of his origin. What was it?

Only this: when the Third Aeons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being, according to the Universal Plan, they at first detained from him that Divine Spark (Thought, on earth, Manes); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man's committing the original sin as the angels had committed it Aeons before by refusing to create. (See Sec. Doc. Vol. II).

Finally, after detaining the Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having. subjected the Divine Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into an-other through ages and races, until Simon found her and recognized her in the form of Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Savior descended upon earth to rescue this “lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels.

The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed the chief rites of this kind of magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helene”. It was the marriage of Nous (Atma-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought became one and are endowed with Divine powers. For Atma, in man, being of an una-loyed essence, the primordial Divine Fire (or the Eternal and Universal “that which has stood, stands, and will stand”), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the “Father” in her turn and also Will. She is “that which has stood, stands, and will stand, thus becoming in conjunction with Manas, male-female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia, Divine Thought, He meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manes. Helena was the Salt of the inner Man, the female potency.

Now what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were emanations of ENNOIA (Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught, the Science of Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him, i.e.: after initiation, were said to “resurrect from the dead and growing no older” became “immortal.” (See Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., Lib., III, Chap. 26).

The “resurrection” promised by Menander, meant, of course, simple the passage from darkness and ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man's immortal spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the science of the Raja Yogis - Magic. Every person who has read Neo-Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Iamblichus, the author of De Mysteries lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Divine Science of Raja Yoga.

Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime science, Divine, and exalted above all others. “It is the great remedy for all. It neither takes its source in, nor is it limited to, the body or its passions, to the human compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our upper gods,” our Divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the spark in us up to the primeval Divine Fire. (De Mysteries, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1).

Iamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, he says, by the bad demons who deceive man (the.,spooks of the seance-room), as vehemently as he exalts Divine Theurgy. But to exorcise the latter, he teaches, the Theurgist must imperatively be “a man of high morality and a chaste soul.” The other kind of magic is used only by impure, selfish men, and has nothing of the Divine in it - no real Vates would ever consent to find in its communications anything coming fLum our higher Gods.

Thus one (Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other, subjection to our lower nature - one requires holiness of the Soul, a holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the desecration of it (the Soul). One is the union with the Gods (with one's God), the source of all good; the other, intercourse with demons (Elementals), which unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us step by step to moral ruin (mediumship).

In short: “Theurgy united us most strongly to Divine nature. This nature begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers, supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is consolidated in their, (the Gods) actions and intelligences until it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial Divine Essence. This is the object of the sacred initiations of the Egyptians.”

Now, Iamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of the Mantein, which is Samadhi, the highest trance (Ibid. p. 100, sec. III, cap 3). He speaks also of dream which is Divine Wisdom, when man re-becomes again a God.

By Theurgy or Raja Yoga, a man arrives at:

• Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the plane upon which we happen to be acting;

• Ecstasy and Illumination;

• Action in Spirit (in Astral body or through Will);

• and domination over the minor senseless Demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our purified Egos.

But this demands the complete purification of the latter. And this is called by him Magic, through Initiation into Theurgy.

But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the human self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man has not mastered thoroughly this preliminary study, it is idle to anthropomorphize the formless. By “formless” I mean the higher and lower Gods, the super-mundane. as well as mundane Spirits and Beings, which to beginners can be revealed only in Colors and Sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which, to the untrained intellect, to the Chela, will be visible only by its aura. The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums belong to one or another of the only three categories they can see:

• Astrals of living men;

• Nirmanakayas (Adepts, good or bad, whose bodies are dead; but who have learned to live in the invisible space in their ethereal personalities; and

• Spooks, Elementaries, and Elenentals masquerading in spaces borrowed from the Astral Light in general, or from figures in the “Mind's Eye” of the audience, or of the medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective auras,

Having read the foregoing, students will now better comprehend the necessity of first studying the correspondences between our “principles” – which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual and physical) man and our Paradigm, the direct roots of these in the Universe. In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies directly connected and forever linked with man.

End of Instructions II - a

H. P. B.