Part 1 of 2
E.S. INSTRUCTIONS NO. II BY H.P. BLAVATSKY (FACSIMILE OF 1890 ARYAN PRESS EDITION)INSTRUCTIONS NO. II.
March and April, 1889.
Strictly Private and Confidential.
[NOT THE PROPERTY OF ANY MEMBER, AND TO BE RETURNED ON DEMAND TO THE HEAD OF THE SECTION OR TO WILLIAM Q. JUDGE, P.O. BOX 2659, NEW YORK, N.Y.]
E. S. T. S. -- No. II.
Instruction for March and April, 1889IT seems useful, in view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, that we should premise by explaining some points which remained obscure in the instruction for January and February, as well as some statements in which there was an appearance of contradiction.
Astrologers, we hear, -- and we have many among the Esotericists -- are likely to be puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings; whilst those who know nothing of Esoteric Astrology may perhaps find themselves opposed at the outset by some of their friends who have studied the exoteric systems of the Kabala and Astrology. For, let it be distinctly known, nothing of that which is printed broadcast, i. e.; available to every student in public libraries or even museums, is really esoteric, but is either mixed with deliberate blinds, or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete glossary of the occult terms and their equivalents.
The following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the student in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the instruction for January and February.
In the first place we may have to speak of the diagrams which accompanied the first instruction, and which for the sake of brevity may be referred to as: (1) the Double-Page Diagram=D. P.; (2) the Colored Diagram=C.; (3) the Tabular Diagram=T.
First. in regard to the Double-Page Diagram, it will be observed that centers 3, 7and 10 therein treated are respectively as follows:
(a) The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute, and therefore to the three higher principles in Man.
(b) The 7 belong to the spiritual, psychic and physical world and to the body of man. Physics, metaphysics and hyperphysics are the triad that symbolizes man on this plane.
(c) The sum-total of this, or the 10, is the Universe as a whole, in all its aspects, and also its Microcosm -- Man, with his ten orifices.
Therefore, laying aside. for the moment, the Higher Decade (Kosmos) and the Lower Decade (Man) -- this comes to saying that the three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the Human Being; as much as to the Higher, Supersensual 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 as symbolized and comprehended in all the Eastern religions in one Ovum, or EGG, the name 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, in consequence naturally of the limitations of human thought.With regard to the Tabular Diagram, as remarked in its right-hand corner,
no notice need be taken of any numbers used in the left-hand column, as these numbers 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 of the planets. The human principles elude enumeration, because every man differs from another, just as there are no two leaves or blades of grass on the whole earth absolutely alike. Numbering here is a question of spiritual progress and of the natural predominance of one "principle" over another.
With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, the Lower Manas -- if the man be a bestial sensualist. With one the physical body, or perhaps Prana, the life principle (in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality), will be on the first and highest plane; with another it may come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colors and metals, as will be observed, corresponding to the planets and human principles, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and Western Occultists.
As an instance, and in order to show whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the correspondence of planets, metals and colors. The modern Orientalist, judging on appearances, credits the ancient Akkadians (also the Chaldeans, Hindus and Egyptians) with the crude notion that our Universe (and the earth likewise) was like an inverted, round, bell-shaped bowl! This he demonstrates by pointing to the Akkadian representations of some symbolical inscriptions and to the Assyrian carvings. It is no place here to explain how mistaken is the Assyriologist, for all such representations are simply symbolical of the Khargak-kurra, the "World-Mountain," or Meru, and relate only to the North Pole, the land of the Gods. (Vide Secret Doctrine, vol. III p. 357, and vol. 1, p. 127 et seq.) But this is how the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching about the planets and their correspondences:
NUMBERS / PLANETS / METALS / COLORS / SOLAR DAYS OF WEEK
1 / Saturn / Lead / Black / Saturday. (Whence Sabbath, in honor of Jehovah.)
2 / Jupiter / Tin / White, but as often purple or orange / Thursday
3 / Mars / Iron / Red / Tuesday
4 / Sun / Gold / Yellow-golden / Sunday
5 / Venus / Copper / Green or yellow Friday
6 / Mercury / Quicksilver / Blue / Wednesday
7 / Moon / Silver / Silver-white / Monday
This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, as will be shown, -- save in the case of the days of the week, of which order they have, by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, made a sore mess. (Vide Instructions No. I.) It is the Ptolemaic system in which the Concentric Diagram that represents the Universe shows our Earth in the center of the Universe and the Sun as a planet -- the fourth in number. Thus:
The Heaven of the Moon
The Heaven of Mercury
The Heaven of Venus
The Heaven of Sun
The Heaven of Mars
The Heaven of Jupiter
The Heaven of Saturn
FIRMAMENT.
WATER: THE CRYSTALLINE, EARTHAnd if the Christian religion is being daily denounced as based on an entirely wrong astronomical foundation, as regards its week and chronology, it is high time to begin a reform in
Astrology built on these lines, which comes to us entirely, too, 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 the Tabular Diagram) the planetary bodies themselves must not be taken as being referred to, except as types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual worlds. A material planet can only correspond 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 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 same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as correspondences.
Exoterically there is, in reality, no such association of the right eye with Mercury or of the left with Venus, as physical eyes and physical planets. But esoterically there is a good deal; for, as just said, the right eye is the "Eye of Wisdom," i.e., it corresponds magnetically with that occult center in the brain which we call "the Third Eye" (see Secret Doctrine, vol. II, p. 288 et seq.); while the left eye 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 (in our case the Spirit -- not to be confounded with Atma, the Meta-spirit) is there said to have the "single eye." Esoterically, in other words, the "third eye" is active. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II.)
Now since Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, their conjunction in man on the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely spiritual man is, however, entirely disconnected from sex. The latter corresponds directly with the higher "colored circles," the divine prism which emanates from
the One Infinite White Circle; the former, or physical man, 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
Zohar (11, 81, 6) shows, as also even the Old Testament. For, when properly translated, v
erse 18 of chapter XX Exodus would read: "And the people saw the Voices," (or Sounds, not the "thunderings," as now translated); and these Voices or Sounds are the Sephiroth. (See Franck's La Kabbala, p. 314 et seq.)
In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the "Breath of Lives" (Genesis 11, 7) are here said to correspond with the Sun and Moon, as Brahma-Prajapati and Vach, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the natural life. This Quaternary constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian-Angels of the four corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern esoteric philosophy, but with the following explanations. The Sun and the Moon -- being, one (the Sun) not a planet, but the central star of our system; and the other (the Moon) a dead planet, from which all the principles are gone, -- both stand as substitutes: the one for an invisible trans- mercurial planet still nearer to the Sun, and the other for a planet which seems to have now altogether disappeared from view. They are the four Maharajahs of the Secret Doctrine (vol I, p. 122),
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, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel; and it need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves, being but the physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric Doctrine, 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 was symbolized, or rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown. All this will be demonstrated. [1]
Then, again, it will be well to point out that
the numbers attached to the psychic principles (second paragraph of the Double-Page Diagram) appear the reverse of those in the Colored Diagram. 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 all the Buddhist Esotericists do. In the Colored Diagram, the numbers of the principles disagree with the numbers used in the Double-Page Diagram, simply because the first are those hitherto used in the semi-exoteric teachings of Theosophy. (See Esoteric Buddhism.) As said in the Secret Doctrine (vol. I, p. 122),
the Esoteric school has been divided since the fourteenth century into two departments, one for the inner 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 in the Colored Diagram on his copy the secret one as given in the Tabular Diagram. But even that would require special study.
The numbers and principles do not go, like the skins of an onion, in regular sequence, 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 they become inseparable.
The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles given in the Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism leads to another and apparently perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. In the Colored Diagram, it will be seen that the principles numbered 3 and 2, vis: Linga Sarira and Prana, or Jiva, stand in the reverse order to that given in the Double-Page Diagram. A moment's consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric enumeration, as printed on the Colored Diagram, and the esoteric order given in the Double-Page Diagram. For
in the Double-Page-Diagram 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, not superior as the exoteric enumeration in the Colored Diagram would show.The colored part of the Diagram is profoundly esoteric, but
the old and more familiar exoteric enumeration in the old order below it was used to force upon the attention of the student the fact that the principles do not stand one above another, and thus cannot be taken in numerical order, their order depending upon the superiority and predominance of such or another principle, and they must therefore differ in every man.
The Linga Sarira is, as the name denotes, the double, or protoplasmic antetype, of which the body it is united to is the image; and in this sense it is called in the Tabular Diagram the parent of the physical body, i.e., the mother by 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 Mythoi, it has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho-physical application. To close the subject,
Prana, as life-principle, can bear, in sober truth, no number, as it pervades every other principle, or the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally 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 would be useful if we set them down here after the manner of the Tabular Diagram, in relation to their dominion over the human body, color, metals and planets, etc., and explain at the same time the raison d'etre why in genuine esoteric philosophy they have to differ from the astrological claims. Say the Astrologers:
Saturn rules Saturday: metal, lead: the right ear, the knees and bony system of the body; and in color, black. [In Esotericism, green, as there is no black in the prismatic ray.]
Jupiter rules Thursday; the metal tin: the left ear, the thighs and feet and the arterial system: color, purple. [Esoterically, light blue, because, as a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue, and because in
Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the color purple, while red is the material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, who is green, and because light blue as a prismatic color contains a good deal of green. In fact the Auric Body contains 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 Manas the Higher has preponderance over the Lower.]
Mars rules Tuesday: iron; the forehead and nose, the skull, sex-function and muscular system; color, red.
Sun rules Sunday: gold: the right eye, the heart and vital centers; color, orange. [The Sun in esoteric Astrology can have no correspondence with eye, nose or anything, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet only by the post-Christian Astrologers, who had lost the secrets of Initiation. Moreover,
the true color of the Sun is blue, and he appears yellow only owing to the effect of absorption of (chiefly metallic) vapors by his atmosphere. All is Maya on our Earth.] Venus rules Friday; copper: the chin and cheeks, the neck and veins, and the venous system; color, yellow. [Esoterically: color, 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 is its siderial symbol Venus, the planet which is both the morning and evening star, hence the dark blue and green denote the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas -- whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy which rules Venus -- and to show their character and relation. Green -- the Lower Manas -- resembles the color of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue -- the Higher, Spiritual Manas. It is (a) the intensified color of the heaven or sky, to denote its upward tendency toward Buddhi, or the heavenly, Spiritual Soul; and (b) the indigo color is obtained from the Indigoferra tinctoria, which is a plant of the greatest occult properties in India, and is much used in White Magic; the plant is, moreover, occultly connected with copper. This is shown by the indigo color assuming a coppery luster, especially when rubbed on any hard 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 upon a logical and demonstrable reason. Therefore the Eastern symbologists, from the earliest ages, have connected the dual mind of man (the spiritual and the animal) the one with the dark blue (Newton's indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with the purely green color.] Mercury rules Wednesday; quicksilver; the mouth, hands and abdominal viscera, the nervous system; color, dove or cream. [We say 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 which stood before 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 close of the Third Race.] The Moon rules Monday; silver; the breasts, left eye, the fluidic system, saliva, lymph, etc.; color, white. [In Esotericism, 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 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 Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colors from its end up to green, -- both being, the one as a color, and the other as a principle, the most refrangible of all the colors and principles. Besides which, there is the same great occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, namely, celestial and terrestrial bodies, colors and sounds. In clearer words, there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, 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 distributed by this method 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 us men 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 and relation to one of the human principles, since each of these Hierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human principle.
Each prismatic color is called in Occultism the "Father of the Sound" which corresponds to it; sound being the Word, or the 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 neutral colors, and have no representatives in the world of subjective beinghood.
Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominions of the planetary bodies in the human brain is also 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 rules the governing faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon rules the instincts; -- we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading. For, in the first place, the physical planets can only rule the physical body and the purely physical functions.
All the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual faculties are influenced by the occult properties of the scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in the Tabular Diagram, leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1) color; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the metals, i.e., , the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into the physical metals; then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence passes into (5) the plants, giving them color and smell, both of which "properties" depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of time; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; and finally (7) 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 invisible, but which one hears. The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces color, sound and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration; which vibrations 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 on 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 everything in nature which has a voice or produces sound.
It culminates, to the hearing of all who hearken, into a single definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F, or Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, it will be evident to the student of Occultism wherein lies the difference between the exoteric and the esoteric nomenclature and symbolism. In short,
Kabalistic Astrology, as now practiced in Europe, is the semi-esoteric secret science, adapted for the outer and not for 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 appearances of things. Esoteric philosophy, concerning 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 the Medieval Ages and dark bigotry up to this day, when all danger has disappeared.The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric radii, i. e., the distance of their several orbits from the Earth as a center, vis: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. In the first three of these we have symbolized the celestial triad of supreme power in the physical, manifested universe, or Brahma, Vishnu and Siva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass and elements. Thus:
Spring / Summer / Autumn / Winter
Morning / Noon / Evening / Night
Youth / Adolescence / Manhood / Decay
Fire / Air / Water / Earth
East / South / West / North
But Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to precede further teachings in this direction with clearer explanations about the real value of the word Magic.
***
What Magic Is, in Reality.Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and inseparableness, in divine magic, [2] from
our divine Selves -- the latter meaning something else besides our own higher spirit. Thus, before proceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may be useful, perhaps, to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of that most misunderstood word "magic." Many are those willing and eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the science itself. As
very few of the American and European students can derive benefit from Sanskrit works, or even their translations, -- all these translations being, for the most part, exoteric blinds to the uninitiated, -- I propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from Neo-Platonic works. These are accessible in translations; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus the Gnosis -- pre-Christian and post-Christian -- will serve our purpose admirably.There are millions of Christians who know about Simon Magus, but only the little that is told about him in the Acts; but very
few who have even heard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is only to be found in the prejudiced, half-fantastic records about him in the works of the Church Fathers -- Irenaeus, Epiphanius, St. Justin, and especially in the Philosophomena. Yet he is an historical character, and the appellation 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 was always made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of the writer.
It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that we find what the term "magic" meant for the Initiates in those days.
Simon taught that our world was created by the lower angels, whom he called AEons, as all the other Gnostics did. He mentions only three degrees of such, because, as explained in the Secret Doctrine, he found it useless to teach anything about the four higher ones, and therefore begins at the plane of globes A and Z of the terrestrial chain.
His system is nearer to occult truth than any, so that we must examine it, as well as his own and Menander's pretensions to magic, to find out what they meant by this 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, i.e., had a manifested and a concealed or secret side. "The secret side of the fire is concealed in its evident or objective side, and the objective is under the secret side," he writes: 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 and the Sensuous, and Aristotle's teaching on the Potency and the Act. For Simon,
all that can be thought of, all that can be acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained all. And thus all the portions 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 portions in their primordial emanation are our Dhyan 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 Potency, to which he (Simon) gave other names, e g., "That which is, was, and will be" -- or permanent Stability and personified Immutability.
From the power of Thought, divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the Intelligent or objective side of Fire being the Mother, the secret side of it being the Father.
Simon called his emanations Sysigies (a united pair, or couple), i.e., they emanated two by two, one as an active, the other as a passive AEon. When three couples had thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the Seventh) Simon gave them the following names: "Spirit and Thought" (Nous and Epinoia); "the Voice and the Name;" "Reason and Reflection;" the first in each pair being male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six AEons of the middle world. Let us see what Simon says himself: "Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite Potency [of its parent]; but it was there only as Potency, and not as an 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 its parent, the eternal and infinite Potency. If on the contrary, it failed to be conformed by, or through an 'image,' then the Potency would not pass into action, but would get lost:" in clearer terms, it would get atrophied, as the modern expression goes. (Philosophomena, lib. IV, No. 9, p. 250.)
Now what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all to the Infinite Potency the AEons had to imitate it in its action, and themselves to become, in their turn, emanative principles, as their parent was; to give life to new beings and become potency in actu themselves? To produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyasakti (vide Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 293 et passim), 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 AEons, or even in the secondary emanations, by the very fact of their and our descent from the One Primordial Principle -- 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 Philosophomena we read:
"'It is written,' said Simon in his . . . . . . . , 'that there are two kinds of AEons having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same Root -- the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality -- named Silence [Sige.] One of these [series of AEons] appears to us superior to the other. This one is the "Great Intelligence" [Universal Mind, or divine Ideation] of all things; it rules all and is male [it is the Mahat of the Hindus). The other is much inferior, for it is [manifested] Thought, the great female AEon: these two kinds of AEons, intercommunicating with each other, form and manifest the intermediate [the middle sphere, or plane], the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end'." (Philosophomena, p. 261, lines 13 to 16.) 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 is also called "that which is, was, and will be," so long as the manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated in actu and became like unto its own parent, it was not dual nor androgyne. It is the Thought that emanated from it which became as itself (the Parent), having become as its image (or antetype); the second had now become in its turn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As the author of Philosophomena has it: "The Parent (or Father) was alone on it, containing in itself the Thought, not being the first, though existing before anything else and though manifesting by its own virtue (or quality). But it was not called Father before Thought gave it that name. While developing itself, the [future] 'Father' manifested itself in its own Thought, but, once manifested, the thought did not act; but it hid in itself that 'Father' which it had seen, i.e., that second Potency of the intermediate world. Two Beings existed thence, the male-female Potency (or the Parent) and Epinoia (its Thought.) They were two yet one, though they manifested in a dual way: the male principle containing in itself a female potency, which is Spirit in the Thought [Nous and Epinoia], both being inseparable and one." (Ibid, No. 18, p. 261 et seq.)
"He (Simon) calls the first Sysigie of the six Potencies and of the seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth; the male looks from on high and purveys to his spouse, for the Earth receives the spiritual fruits from Heaven whence they descend and are analogous with it." (Ibid., No. 13. p. 251.)
Simon's Third World with its third series of six AEons and the seventh -- the Parent -- is emanated in the same way.
It is the 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 conditioned and dwarfed in the latter by its limitations necessitating faith and grace, the Eastern conception shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenaeus supplements the information on the further development of the 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, it proceeded to create on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each consisting of
two planes, the superior and inferior, male and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming androgyne), -- proceeded 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 potentially 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. This, again, is found in Philosophomena, which speaks of the "three AEons," and says, "the first exists as That which is, was, and will be," or the uncreate Power, Atman; the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated Substance, our Buddhi) from or 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 neither Simon Magus nor any great Gnostic ever speaks of its beginning, any more than does any Eastern philosopher. "Eternal Matter" receives its various forms on the lower AEon from the Creative Angels (Builders, we call them):
Why should not Man, the direct heir of the highest AEon, do the same thing by the potentiality of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is Kriyasakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through the potency of Ideation and Will, and from the invisible, indestructible Matter.Truly says Jeremiah (chap. 1 v. 5): "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctioned thee," for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an AEon, or Divine Man, whether with Simon Magus or Eastern philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as occult as what is given in Instructions No. I.
The terrestrial Paradise is the Universal Womb, says Simon, Eden the membrane which envelopes the Foetus. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; the four Heads (streams) that flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the Foetus, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child being, according to Simon, entirely enveloped by the Amnion, and it being fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta. [3] (Philosophomena, p. 253.)
The above is given for the elucidation of that which has to be said now. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and he is known to have also instructed them in magic; they making use of so-called
"exorcisms" (as in the New Testament), incantations, philters; believing in dreams and visions, and producing them at will; and finally forcing the spirits of the lower orders to obey them. (Philosophomena and others.) Simon Magus was called the "Great Power of God." All this was termed Magic. We call it now Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.
His direct disciple, Menander, was also a great magician. Says Irenaeus, 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 as having attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, which powers can only be obtained (as Christians claim) through "the help of the Devil." Yet they produced all that is spoken of in the New Testament, wherein 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 the Christ- and Apostolic "miracles" ever been explained any more than are to this day the magical achievements 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.