History of the Theosophical Movement

I found it impossible to read through the Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky. I initially attributed that to the stilted writing of that era, but then I realised that it was a mixture of all kinds of mumbo jumbo; trying to impress people with what can only be described as word salad.

I think it worked particularly well back then, as there was a tendency to get easily fascinated with "mysterious Eastern teachings" and the whole spiritualist movement. And most importantly, there was a lack of critical studies done on most of the topics discussed back then, so you had to take at face value what was written about in these works.
 
Eulenspiegel said:
I found it impossible to read through the Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky. I initially attributed that to the stilted writing of that era, but then I realised that it was a mixture of all kinds of mumbo jumbo; trying to impress people with what can only be described as word salad.

I found it difficult reading as well. Not because it was dense with information but rather because there's a lot written with not a whole lot being said. And when you do finally get to her points, it's a let down. There does seem to be some basic understandings about the nature of the world, but this is mixed with noise, personal 'power' and such. I think one of the other things that it comes down to is Blavatsky's aim is also just different from what is trying to be accomplished here.

It's not so rare that people come to this forum with a background that they wish to be integrated with the work that is done here. This inevitably leads to problems when people also have little understanding of the full scope of material explored here, yet think they have a full grasp of things.

arpaxad, reading Wave I and II can provide a little understanding of the things that are explored on the forum, but it's helpful to have a more complete overview before trying to compare materials. If you are sincerely interested in what is being done here, then I hope you do try and see what we're actually about.
 
Eulenspiegel said:
I found it impossible to read through the Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky.

Yes. Tough read. Very obtuse.

I will address this work in particular. Hopefully I can demystify it a bit. De-mystification is a good thing.

The source of her material, as best I can determine, is Tibetan. D. T. Suzuki has said it derives from Mahayana Buddhism. David Reigle (an admirer) is more specific. He claims all her major works are based on Tantric texts -- specifically the Kalachakra. It's one of 4 classes of Anuttarayoga tantra. In that sense, it is not unique. But it's the one she found. All 4 classes are acknowledged to be the "highest" form of tantra. (This is also where Tummo, inner heat yoga comes from btw.)

The Tibetan consensus is that Blavatsky understood this tantric material in its deepest form. This has to be acknowledged. Endorsements have come from previous Panchen Lamas -- and all the way up to the present Dalai Lama. This much is clear.

Specifically, the Stanzes of Dzyan (or the Book of Dzyan) is claimed by Blavatsky to be the foundation upon which "The Secret Doctrine" is based. The latter being an expanded commentary on the former, in translation.

The Stanzes (segments) themselves are confusing and obscure, in line with their Tibetan antecedent -- the Kalachakra texts. This is despite the fact that Kalachakra is considered the least opaque of the 4 traditions ... the others being Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, and Chakrasamvara. These texts were made obscure by design. And Blavatsky simply continued that tradition.

Kalachakra, and anuttarayoga tantra in general, is focused primarily on the short path to Buddhist "liberation" and "enlightenment." Within this intensive internal mind training, an external cosmology is presented as well -- with the ultimate idea of voidness a culmination of the two.

This description of the cosmos, along with all its mysteries, is part of Kalachakra doctrine. But it's not the final aim of the doctrine. Liberation and Enlightenment is the final aim.

To the extent that Blavatsky has omitted internal mind training, one can say her exposition of the secret doctrine had been a partial one. This can be said regardless of the volumes and volumes she has written. Her "magnum opus" (in content) is therefore somewhat incomplete, (without Lojong and Tonglen for example.) Good to keep this in mind.

In 1880, at age 49, Blavastsky (along with Colonel Olcott) made a formal conversion to Buddhism -- in Sri Lanka. This was after the publication of Isis Unveiled (1877) but before The Secret Doctrine (1888). Interesting to note that there were significant differences in her view on reincarnation between the two volumes. (She insisted her views were simply misunderstood in the first volume.)

In any event, I was surprised to find she once made a categorical denial of any link to Buddhist sources regarding her work. (This according to Alexander Berzin.) Instead, she said all her ideas came from "Himalayan mystics." I've been puzzled ever since who these might be -- if not Buddhist monks. And I think there's a problem here. Obfuscation of source is generally not a positive sign, and plagiarism has been a charge leveled against her.

Now: with the above background and preface, I like to say this to Arpaxad:

Within Kalachakra, the concept of Lojong (attitude training) is a vital component. You've claimed a long history of practice & study. Yet I find your attitude (as expressed in your words) lacking in true humility. Key to Kalachakra is a deep abiding sense of no-self. So just how far along have you come in this path?

FWIW.
 
Thanks for that, sitting; definitely going in the direction of the kind of discourse we strive for.

In the book I just finished, I included my favorite quote from Egyptologist, Donald Redford, discussing the mainstream biblical scholars who are believers:

Scholars expended substantial effort on questions that they had failed to prove were valid questions at all. Under what dynasty did Joseph rise to power? Who was the Pharaoh of the Oppression? Of the Exodus? Can we identify the princess who drew Moses out of the river? Where did the Israelites make their exit from Egypt: via the Wady Tumilat or by a more northerly point?

One can appreciate the pointlessness of these questions if one poses similar questions of the Arthurian stories, without first submitting the text to a critical evaluation. Who were the consuls of Rome when Arthur drew the sword from the stone? Where was Merlin born?

Can one seriously envisage a classical historian pondering whether it was Iarbas or Aeneas that was responsible for Dido’s suicide, where exactly did Remus leap over the wall, what really happened to Romulus in the thunderstorm, and so forth?

In all these imagined cases none of the material initially prompting the questions has in any way undergone a prior evaluation as to how historical it is! And any scholar who exempts any part of his sources from critical evaluation runs the risk of invalidating some or all of his conclusions.

The vast majority of biblical scholars are believers who claim to be analyzing and attempting to understand their theology while most of their efforts actually go toward developing, defending, and propagating it. This is true not only among those scholars who are churchmen, but also, for the most part, among biblical scholars who are members of faculties of theology at universities. They tend to forget that truly historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth are non-existent, in scientific history terms, and that their views, long established by cultural norms in which they were born and trained, are not even strong enough to be considered hypotheses.

One of the most historically egregious things that biblical scholars do is to derive mythical earlier texts from later ones rather than the proper procedure of acknowledging that the gospels themselves must derive from texts that provably existed early. To construct a hypothetical “early oral tradition” based on later texts, or worse, a mythical “Q document” because you simply cannot accept that there is nothing behind that wall that Paul stands before, is just simply petitio principii. For a trained scholar to come right out and say that the existence of a Jewish wonder worker called Jesus, for whose historical reality there is not a shred of evidence, is a more plausible hypothesis than a mythical cult figure created by human needs out of heroic elements of various individuals following a well-understood mythicization process, just boggles the mind.

And the same caveats apply to most scholars of Buddhist literature.
 
sitting said:
Eulenspiegel said:
I found it impossible to read through the Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky.

He claims all her major works are based on Tantric texts -- specifically the Kalachakra. It's one of 4 classes of Anuttarayoga tantra. In that sense, it is not unique. But it's the one she found. All 4 classes are acknowledged to be the "highest" form of tantra. (This is also where Tummo, inner heat yoga comes from btw.)

The Tibetan consensus is that Blavatsky understood this tantric material in its deepest form. This has to be acknowledged. Endorsements have come from previous Panchen Lamas -- and all the way up to the present Dalai Lama. This much is clear.

I find that hard to believe considering I read some of Alexandra David-Neel's works(she supposedly was the first white woman to enter Lhasa during the early 20th century, note how that happened way later than any of Blavatsky attempts to enter Tibet.) that detail her difficulties encountered when trying to enter Tibet. This is the logistic problem.

Then there is the linguistic problem. Back then, some missionaries composed the first Tibetan-French dictionary. I assume it must have been very difficult to do a textual analysis of both Classical as well as whatever dialect the lamas spoke at that time. You also don't just translate from any ancient language into a modern one after a few years of study. Nevermind her claims of having translated from some kind of "ancient Sanskrit" that somehow no scholar can find records of.

Then there is the gender issue. There is a British woman that is now known as Tenzin Palmo, who, in 1964, became one of the first Western women to be ordained as a full nun in one of the Tibetan sects. In her book Cave in the Snow, she complains about not being taken seriously by the male members of the Tibetan sangha(dharma community) and it was very difficult for her to be accepted and taught anything.
So we are supposed to believe that Blavatsky simply walked in and high lamas initiated her into Anuttarayoga?

Looking at her biography, it is only by her own account that we are led to believe that she was successful the second time she tried to enter Tibet, and the accounts of a later British expedition contradict her own descriptions of Lhasa.

So how is she supposed to have understood tantric material in its deepest form?
 
Ever check out the official Seal/Symbol of Theosophy? It has everything in it but the kitchen sink: Swastika, Orobourous, Star of David, Aum, Ankh. (but, interestingly, no cross) Looks creepily 4d STS matrix inspired to me.

 

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BHelmet said:
Ever check out the official Seal/Symbol of Theosophy? It has everything in it but the kitchen sink: Swastika, Orobourous, Star of David, Aum, Ankh. (but, interestingly, no cross) Looks creepily 4d STS matrix inspired to me.

Sure does.
 
Laura said:
angelburst29 said:
Theosophy is a blend of distorted forms of Hinduism and Buddhism with Western occultism.

Pretty much.
etc.

This is just the "glass-half-empty" way to look at the claims of Theosophy (or "the Secret Doctrine") being

"the universally diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world" (The Secret Doctrine, Introductory)

and that:

"[...] the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion,.neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised."

- Op. cit., Preface

and that:

These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her own study and observation.

- Ibid.

And, now, how about all the claims that the Fourth Way was exactly this kind of teaching, popping up in different forms and guises in different places all throughout the history, and

[w]hen this work is finished, [...] the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. (ISOM, ch. 16)

Also, in ISOM:

About schools and where he had found the knowledge he undoubtedly possessed he spoke very little and always superficially. He mentioned Tibetan monasteries, the Chitral, Mount Athos; Sufi schools in Persia, in Bokhara, and eastern Turkestan; he mentioned dervishes of various orders; but all of them in a very indefinite way.

and:

"Esoteric schools, that is, not pseudo-esoteric schools, which perhaps exist in some countries of the East, are difficult to find because they exist there in the guise of ordinary monasteries and temples."
- Ibid.
 
Hmmm, after reading through this thread I feel like the OP is imposing a lot of information on me.. I can't comment where I stand on the information being posted, but you seem to think that constantly shoving it down the throats of other's might finally break through to them or something?

Arpaxad you may feel like you're doing everybody a favor, but it seems you're just trying to tell everybody the books you like are better. If someone doesn't want to read something you are suggesting or others are telling you they've already read it and it doesn't resonate the same way with them, the ''you didn't get it'' route makes you come off as childish..

No one is taking this information away from you, but you sure are presenting it in a way that seems to want validation rather than discussion. There are plenty of people who'd like to discuss h.p.b's work so why focus on imposing it here?

I'm not arguing the legitimacy of the information here, but I feel taking other's into consideration is more important than proving you're right..
 
Neil said:
The Secret Doctrine said:
Vol. 1, Page 73 THE DRAGON AND THE LOGOI.
Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends until it becomes the Maya or the tempting and deceitful serpent on our plane.

Knowing the interference that has occurred from hyperdimensional realities in maintaining a control system on Earth, I pay close attention when any esotericist starts to extol the virtues of the serpentine energy. It seems that 4D STS always leaves their "stamp" somewhere when crafting these things, and this portion ran a red flag up the pole.

This is interesting, indeed. I have not paid much attention to the kind of detail Neil is referring to (perhaps because I do have a slight aversion to snakes, too). I remember something where she was referring to Eliphas Levi and his idea of the "serpent." May it be that HPB was simply attempting to tie all the pieces together from her contemporary occultists and to show them that there is something larger underlying all their stuff?
 

Sorry, Perri475. You don't have to read what you don't want. Have you learned to control your intellectual center enough not to get into material that produces a vomiting response (unless you think it's healing)? It's a basic safeguard akin to that a child learns when he is taught not to put everything that he picks up into his mouth (even when he is at home!).
 
Let's look more closely at the idea of the Serpent in "The Secret Doctrine." Note that the Serpent does not figure prominently in the part I of volume I, where HPB actually comments on the Stanzas. It shows up only in the part II, which is supposed to deal with all kinds of occult symbolism, without necessarily advocating pro (or against) it.

Here is from chapter X of the part II:

TREE, SERPENT, AND CROCODILE WORSHIP.
"Object of horror or of adoration, men have for the serpent an implacable hatred, or prostrate themselves before its genius. Lie calls it, Prudence claims it, Envy carries it in its heart, and Eloquence on its caduceus. In hell it arms the whip of the Furies; in heaven Eternity makes of it its symbol."
DE CHATEAUBRIAND.​
THE Ophites [that is, the ancient snake worshippers - arpaxad.] asserted that there were several kinds of genii, from god to man; that the relative superiority of these was ruled by the degree of light that was accorded to each; and they maintained that the serpent had to be constantly called upon and to be thanked for the signal service it had rendered humanity. For it taught Adam that if he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he would raise his being immensely by the learning and wisdom he would thus acquire. Such was the exoteric reason given.

It is easy to see whence the primal idea of this dual, Janus-like character of the Serpent: the good and the bad. This symbol is one of the most ancient, because the reptile preceded the bird, and the bird the mammal. Thence the belief, or rather the superstition, of the savage tribes who think that the souls of their ancestors live under this form, and the general association of the Serpent with the tree. The legends about the various things it represents are numberless; but, as most of them are allegorical, they have now passed into the class of fables based on ignorance and dark superstition. For instance, when Philostratus narrates that the natives of India and Arabia fed on the heart and liver of serpents in order to learn the language of all the animals, the serpent being credited with that faculty, he certainly never meant his words to be accepted literally. (See De Vita Apollonii, lib. 1, c. xiv.) As will be found more than once as we proceed, the "Serpent" and "Dragon" were the names given to the "Wise Ones," the initiated adepts of olden times. It was their wisdom and their learning that were devoured or assimilated by their followers, whence the allegory. When the Scandinavian Sigurd is fabled to have roasted the heart of Fafnir, the Dragon, whom he had slain, becoming thereby the wisest of men, it meant the same thing. Sigurd had become learned in the runes and magical charms; he had received the "word" from an initiate of that name, or from a sorcerer, after which the latter died, as many do, after "passing the word." Epiphanius lets out a secret of the Gnostics while trying to expose their heresies. The Gnostic Ophites, he says, had a reason for honouring the Serpent: it was because he taught the primeval men the Mysteries (Adv. Haeres. 37). Verily so; but they did not have Adam and Eve in the garden in their minds when teaching this dogma, but simply that which is stated above. The Nagas of the Hindu and Tibetan adepts were human Nagas (Serpents), not reptiles. Moreover, the Serpent has ever been the type of consecutive or serial rejuvenation, of IMMORTALITY and TIME.

The numerous and extremely interesting readings, the interpretations and facts about Serpent worship, given in "The Natural Genesis," are very ingenious and scientifically correct. But they are far from covering the whole of the meanings implied. They divulge only the astronomical and physiological mysteries, with the addition of some cosmic phenomena. On the lowest plane of materiality the Serpent was, no doubt, "the great mystery in the mysteries," and was, very likely, "adopted as a type of feminine pubescence, on account of its sloughing and self-renewal." It was so, however, only with regard to mysteries concerning terrestrial animal life, for as symbol of "reclothing and rebirth in the (universal) mysteries" its "final phase"* -- or shall we rather say its incipient and culminating phases -- they were not of this plane. They were generated in the pure realm of ideal light, and having accomplished the round of the whole cycle of adaptations and symbolism, the "mysteries" returned from whence they had come -- into the essence of immaterial causality. They belonged to the highest gnosis. And surely this could have never obtained its name and fame solely on account of its penetration into physiological and especially feminine functions!

As a symbol, the Serpent had as many aspects and occult meanings as the Tree itself; the "Tree of Life," with which it was emblematically and almost indissolubly connected. Whether viewed as a metaphysical or a physical symbol, the Tree and Serpent, jointly, or separately, have never been so degraded by antiquity as they are now, in this our age of the breaking of idols, not for truth's sake, but to glorify the more gross matter. The revelations and interpretations in "The Rivers of Life" would have astounded the worshippers of the Tree and Serpent in the days of archaic Chaldean and Egyptian wisdom; and even the early Saivas would have recoiled in horror at the theories and suggestions of the author of the said work. "The notion of Payne Knight and Inman that the cross or Tau is simply a copy of the male organs in a triadic form is radically false," writes Mr. G. Massey, who proves what he says. But this is a statement that could be as justly applied to almost all the modern interpretations of ancient symbols. "The Natural Genesis," a monumental work of research and thought, the most complete on that subject that has ever been published, covering as it does a wider field, and explaining much more than all the symbologists who have hitherto written, does not yet go beyond the "psycho-theistic" stage of ancient thought. Nor were Payne Knight and Inman altogether wrong; except in entirely failing to see that their interpretations of the "Tree of Life," as the cross and phallus, fitted the symbol, and approximated it, only on the lowest and last stage of the evolutionary development of the idea of the GIVER OF LIFE. It was the last and the grossest physical transformation of nature, in animal, insect, bird, and even plant; for biune, creative magnetism, in the form of the attraction of the contraries, or sexual polarization, acts in the constitution of reptile and bird as it does in that of man. Moreover, the modern symbologists and Orientalists -- from first to last -- being ignorant of the real mysteries revealed by occultism, can necessarily see but this last stage. If told that this mode of procreation, which the whole world of being has now in common on this earth, is but a passing phase, a physical means of furnishing the conditions to, and producing the phenomena of life which will alter with this, and disappear with the next Root-Race -- they would laugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But the most learned Occultists assert this because they know it. The universe of living beings, of all those which procreate their species, is the living witness to the various modes of procreation in the evolution of animal and human species and races; and the naturalist ought to sense this truth intuitionally, even though he is yet unable to demonstrate it. And how could he, indeed, with the present modes of thought! The landmarks of the archaic history of the past are few and scarce, and those that men of science come across are mistaken for finger-posts of our little era. Even so-called "universal" (?) history embraces but a tiny field in the almost boundless space of the unexplored regions of our latest, fifth Root-Race. Hence, every fresh sign-post, every new glyph of the hoary Past that is discovered, is added to the old stock of information, to be interpreted on the same lines of pre-existing conceptions, and without any reference to the special cycle of thought which that particular glyph may belong to. How can Truth ever come to light if this method is never changed!

Thus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly. The tree was reversed, and its roots were generated in Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being. Its trunk grew and developed, crossing the planes of Pleroma, it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Asvattha, tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the Bhagavatgita to grow with its roots above and its branches below (ch. xv.). The roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the LOGOS; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite oneself with Krishna, who, says Arjuna (XI.), is "greater than Brahman, and First Cause . . . the indestructible, that which is, that which is not, and what is beyond them." Its boughs are Hiranyagharba (Brahma or Brahman in his highest manifestations, say Sridhara and Madhusudana), the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas. The Vedas are its leaves. He only who goes beyond the roots shall never return, i.e., shall reincarnate no more during this "age" of Brahma.

It is only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud of the garden of Eden, of our Adamic race, that this Tree got soiled by the contact and lost its pristine purity; and that the Serpent of Eternity -- the heaven-born LOGOS -- was finally degraded. In days of old -- of the divine Dynasties on Earth -- the now dreaded Reptile was regarded as the first beam of light that radiated from the abyss of divine Mystery. Various were the forms which it was made to assume, and numerous the natural symbols adapted to it, as it crossed aeons of Time: as from Infinite Time itself -- Kala -- it fell into the space and time evolved out of human speculation. These forms were Cosmic and astronomical, theistic and pantheistic, abstract and concrete. They became in turn the Polar Dragon and the Southern Cross, the Alpha Draconis of the Pyramid, and the Hindu-Buddhist Dragon, which ever threatens, yet never swallows the Sun during its eclipses. Till then, the Tree remained ever green, for it was sprinkled by the waters of life; the great Dragon, ever divine, so long as it was kept within the precincts of the sidereal fields. But the tree grew and its lower boughs touched at last the infernal regions -- our Earth. Then the great serpent Nidhogg -- he who devours the corpses of the evil-doers in the "Hall of Misery" (human life), so soon as they are plunged into "Hwergelmir," the roaring cauldron (of human passions) -- gnawed the World-tree. The worms of materiality covered the once healthy and mighty roots, and are now ascending higher and higher along the trunk; while the Midgard-snake coiled at the bottom of the Seas, encircles the Earth, and, through its venomous breath, makes her powerless to defend herself.

They are all seven-headed, the dragons and serpents of antiquity -- "one head for each race, and every head with seven hairs on it," as the allegory has it. Aye, from Ananta, the Serpent of Eternity which carries Vishnu through the Manvantara, from the original primordial Sesha, whose seven heads become "one thousand heads" in the Puranic fancy, down to the seven-headed Akkadian Serpent. This typifies the Seven principles throughout nature and man; the highest or middle head being the seventh. It is not of the Mosaic, Jewish Sabbath that Philo speaks in his Creation of the World, when saying that the world was completed "according to the perfect nature of number 6." For, "when that reason (nous) which is holy in accordance with the number seven, has entered the soul (rather the living body), the number six is thus arrested, and all the mortal things which that number makes." And again: "Number 7 is the festival day of all the earth, the birthday of the world. I know not whether any one would be able to celebrate the number 7 in adequate terms." . . . (Par. pp. 30 and 419). The author of The Natural Genesis thinks that "the Septenary of Stars seen in the great bear (the Septarshis) and seven-headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic seven of time above. The goddess of the seven stars," he adds --
"Was the mother of time, as Kep; whence Kepti and Sebti for the two times and number seven. So this is the star of the Seven by name. Sevekt (Kronos), the Son of the goddess, has the name of the seven or seventh. So has Sefekh Abu who builds the house on high, as Wisdom (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars. . . The primary Kronotypes were seven, and thus the beginning of time in heaven is based on the number and the name of seven, on account of the starry demonstrators. The seven stars as they turned round annually kept pointing, as it were, with the forefinger of the right hand, and describing a circle in the upper and lower heaven.* The number seven naturally suggested a measure by seven, that led to what may be termed Sevening, and to the marking and mapping out of the circle in seven corresponding divisions which were assigned to the seven great constellations; and thus was formed the celestial heptanomis of Egypt in the heavens. . . . When the stellar heptanomis was broken up and divided into four quarters, it was multiplied by four, and the twenty-eight signs took the place of the primary seven constellations, the lunar zodiac of twenty-eight days being the registered result.** . . . In the Chinese arrangement the four sevens are given to four genii that preside over the four cardinal points. . . ." (In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism the genii are represented by four Dragons -- the "Maharajahs" of the Stanzas.) "The seven Northern constellations make up the Black Warrior; the seven Eastern (Chinese autumn) constitute the White Tiger; the seven Southern are the Vermilion Bird; and the seven Western (called Vernal) are the Azure Dragon. Each of these four Spirits presides over its heptanomis during one lunar week. The genetive of the first heptanomis (Typhon of the Seven Stars) now took a lunar character; . . . in this phase we find the goddess Sefekh, whose name signifies number 7, is the feminine word, or logos in place of the mother of Time, who was the earlier Word, as goddess of the Seven Stars" ("Typology of Time," Vol. II. p. 313, Nat. Gen.)

The author shows that it was the goddess of the Great Bear and mother of Time who was in Egypt from the earliest times the "Living Word," and that "Sevekh-Kronus, whose type was the Crocodile-Dragon, the pre-planetary form of Saturn, was called her son and consort; he was her Word-Logos" (p. 321, Vol. I.)..

* For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven are thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the human higher and lower nature.
** Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four-fold division. It is the root of archaic classification.

The above is quite plain, but it was not the knowledge of astronomy only that led the ancients to the process of Sevening. The primal cause goes far deeper and will be explained in its place.
The above quotations are no digressions. They are brought forward as showing (a) the reason why a full Initiate was called a "Dragon," a "Snake" a "Naga"; and (b) that our septenary division was used by the priests of the earliest dynasties in Egypt, for the same reason and on the same basis as by us. This needs further elucidation, however. As already stated, that which Mr. G. Massey calls the four genii of the four cardinal points; and the Chinese, the Black Warrior, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Azure Dragon, is called in the Secret Books, -- the "Four Hidden Dragons of Wisdom" and the "Celestial Nagas." Now, as shown, the seven-headed or septenary DRAGON-LOGOS had been in course of time split up, so to speak, into four heptanomic parts or twenty-eight portions. Each lunar week has a distinct occult character in the lunar month; each day of the twenty-eight has its special characteristics; as each of the twelve constellations, whether separately or in combination with other signs, has an occult influence either for good or for evil. This represents the sum of knowledge that men can acquire on this earth; yet few are those who acquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who get to the root of knowledge symbolized by the great Root Dragon, the spiritual LOGOS of these visible signs. But those who do, receive the name of "Dragons," and they are the "Arhats of the Four Truths of the 28 Faculties," or attributes, and have always been so called.

The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists asserted that to become real Chaldees or Magi, one had to master the science or knowledge of the periods of the Seven Rectors of the world, in whom is all wisdom. In "Proclus in Timaeus," b. 1, Jamblichus is credited with another version, which does not however, alter, the meaning. He says that "the Assyrians have not only preserved the records of seven and twenty myriads of years, as Hipparchus says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the Seven Rulers of the World." The legends of every nation and tribe, whether civilized or savage, point to the once universal belief in the great wisdom and cunning of the Serpents. They are "charmers." They hypnotise the bird with their eye, and man himself, very often, does not feel above their fascinating influence; therefore the symbol is a most fitting one.

The crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis. According to Eusebius, the Egyptians represented the sun in a ship as its pilot, this ship being carried along by a crocodile "to show the motion of the Sun in the moyst (Space)", (Prepar. Evang., 1, 3, c. 3). The crocodile was moreover, the symbol of Egypt herself -- the lower, as being the more swampy of the two countries. The Alchemists claim another interpretation. They say that the symbol of the sun in the ship on the Ether of Space meant that the hermetic matter is the principle, or basis, of gold, or again the philosophical sun; the water, within which the crocodile is swimming, is that water or matter made liquid; the ship herself, finally, representing the vessel of nature, in which the sun, or the sulphuric, igneous principle, acts as a pilot: because it is the sun which conducts the work by his action upon the moist or mercury. The above is only for the Alchemists.

The Serpent became the type and symbol of evil, and of the Devil, only during the middle ages. The early Christians -- besides the Ophite Gnostics -- had their dual Logos: the Good and the Bad Serpent, the Agathodaemon and the Kakodaemon. This is demonstrated by the writings of Marcus, Valentinus, and many others, and especially in Pistis Sophia -- certainly a document of the earliest centuries of Christianity. On the marble sarcophagus of a tomb, discovered in 1852 near the Porta Pia, one sees the scene of the adoration of the Magi, "or else," remarks the late C. W. King in "The Gnostics," "the prototype of that scene, the 'Birth of the New Sun.'" The mosaic floor exhibited a curious design which might have represented either (a) Isis suckling the babe Harpocrates, or (b) the Madonna nursing the infant Jesus. In the smaller sarcophagi that surrounded the larger one, eleven leaden plates rolled like scrolls were found, three of which have been deciphered. The contents of these ought to be regarded as final proof of a much-vexed question, for they show that either the early Christians, up to the VIth Century, were bond fide pagans, or that dogmatic Christianity was borrowed wholesale, and passed in full into the Christian Church -- Sun, Tree, Serpent, Crocodile and all.
"On the first is seen Anubis . . . holding out a scroll; at his feet are two female busts; below all are two serpents entwined . . . a corpse swathed up like a mummy. In the second scroll . . . is Anubis, holding out a cross, the "Sign of Life." Under his feet lies the corpse encircled in the numerous folds of a huge serpent, the Agathodaemon, guardian of the deceased. . . . . In the third scroll, Anubis bears on his arm . . . . . the outline of . . a complete Latin cross . . . At the god's foot is a rhomboid, the Egyptian 'Egg of the World,' towards which crawls a serpent coiled into a circle . . . . Under the busts is the letter [[omega]] repeated seven times in a line, reminding one of the 'names' . . . Very remarkable also is the line of characters, apparently Palmyrene, upon the legs of the first Anubis. As for the figure of the serpent, supposing these talismans to emanate not from the Isiac but the newer Ophite creed, it may well stand for that "True and perfect Serpent," who leads forth the souls of all that put their trust in him out of the Egypt of the body, and through the Red Sea of Death into the Land of Promise, saving them on their way from the Serpents of the Wilderness, that is, from the Rulers of the Stars." (King's "Gnostics," p. 366.)

And this "True and Perfect Serpent" is the seven-lettered God who is now credited with being Jehovah, and Jesus One with him. To this Seven-vowelled god the candidate for initiation is sent by Christos, in the Pistis Sophia, a work earlier than St. John's Revelation, and evidently of the same school. "The (Serpent of the) Seven Thunders uttered these seven vowels," but "Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not," says Revelation. "Do ye seek after these mysteries?" inquiries Jesus in Pistis Sophia. "No mystery is more excellent than they (the seven vowels): for they shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights" -- i.e., true Wisdom. "Nothing, therefore, is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the Seven Vowels and their FORTY AND NINE Powers, and the numbers thereof."

In India, it was the mystery of the Seven FIRES and their forty-nine fires or aspects, or "the members thereof," just the same.

These seven vowels are represented by the Swastika signs on the crowns of the seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity, in India, among esoteric Buddhists, in Egypt, in Chaldea, etc. etc., and among the Initiates of every other country. It is on the Seven zones of post mortem ascent, in the Hermetic writings, that the "mortal" leaves, on each, one of his "Souls" (or Principles); until arrived on the plane above all zones he remains as the great Formless Serpent of absolute wisdom -- or the Deity itself. The seven-headed serpent has more than one signification in the Arcane teachings. It is the seven-headed Draco, each of whose heads is a star of the Lesser Bear; but it was also, and pre-eminently, the Serpent of Darkness (i.e., inconceivable and incomprehensible) whose seven heads were the seven Logoi, the reflections of the one and first manifested Light -- the universal LOGOS.

FWIW. So far, I am not fully convinced that HPB equates the serpent always with "serpent-like beings"; perhaps, she does acknowledge it as a symbol, which may have been why the "serpentine beings" have acquired this shape to present themselves to humanity in the first place - that is, I am not convinced that the worship of the Serpent (the Cosmic Serpent; the Milky Way galaxy, etc.) did not come before the "serpent-looking dudes" took over the planet.
 
To support my previous assumption, here is a quote from the second volume of "The Secret Doctrine," where HPB speaks of the:

[...] difference between the zoological real meaning of the words "dragon," "Naga," and "Serpent," and the metaphorical one, when used symbolically. The profane reader, who knows nothing of the mystery language, is likely, whenever he finds one of these words mentioned, to accept it literally.

Admittedly, it gets somewhat equivocal further on:

Sed et serpens? aye: but what was the nature of the serpent? Mystics intuitionally see in the serpent of Genesis an animal emblem and a high spiritual essence: a cosmic force superintelligent, a "great fallen light," a spirit sidereal, aerial and tellurian at the same time, "whose influence circumambulates the globe (qui circumambulat terram), as a Christian fanatic of the dead-letter (de Mirville) has it, and which only manifested itself under the physical emblem, which was the most convenient "with respect to its moral and intellectual coils": i.e. under the ophidian form.

But what will Christians make of the Brazen Serpent, the "DIVINE HEALER," if the serpent is to be regarded as the emblem of cunning and evil? The "Evil One" itself? How can the line of demarcation ever be settled, when it is traced arbitrarily in a sectarian theological spirit. For, if the followers of the Roman Church are taught that Mercury and AEsculapius, or Asclepios, who are, in truth, one, are "devils and sons of devils," and the wand and serpent of the latter were "the devil's wand"; how about the "brazen serpent" of Moses? Every scholar knows that both the heathen wand and the Jewish "serpent" are one and the same, namely, the Caduceus of Mercury, son of APOLLO-PYTHON. It is easy to comprehend why the Jews adopted the ophidian shape for their "seducer." With them it was purely physiological and phallic; and no amount of casuistical reasoning on the part of the Roman Catholic Church can give it another meaning, once that the mystery language is well studied, and that the Hebrew scrolls are read numerically. The Occultists know that the serpent, the Naga, and the dragon have each a septenary meaning; that the Sun, for instance, was the astronomical and cosmic emblem of the two contrasted lights, and the two serpents of the Gnostics, the good and the evil one; they also know that, when generalised, the conclusions of both science and theology present two most ridiculous extremes. For, when the former tells us that it is sufficient to trace the legends of the serpents to their primal source, the astrological legend, and to meditate seriously on the Sun, conqueror of Python, and the celestial virgin in the Zodiac forcing back the devouring dragon, if we would have the key of all the subsequent religious dogmas; it is easy to perceive that, instead of generalising, the author simply has his eye on Christian religion and Revelation. We call this one extreme. The other we see in this: when, repeating the famous decision of the Council of Trent, theology seeks to convince the masses that "from the fall of man until the hour of his baptism the devil has full power over him, and possesses him by right (diabolum dominationem et potestatem super homines habere et jure cos possidere)." To this Occult philosophy answers: Prove first the existence of the devil as an entity, and then we may believe in such congenital possession. A very small amount of observation and knowledge of human nature may be sufficient to prove the fallacy of this theological dogma. Had SATAN any reality, in the objective or even subjective world (in the ecclesiastical sense), it is the poor devil who would find himself chronically obsessed and even possessed by the wicked -- hence by the bulk of mankind. It is humanity itself, and especially the clergy, headed by the haughty, unscrupulous and intolerant Roman Church, which have begotten, given birth to, and reared in love the evil one; but this is a digression.

Etc., etc.

Further on:

But as to the Nagals and Nargals, whence came the similarity of names between the Indian Nagas and the American Nagals [nagual in the modern orthography, as in C. Castaneda]?

"The Nargal was the Chaldean and Assyrian chief of the Magi (Rab-Mag), and the Nagal was the chief sorcerer of the Mexican Indians. Both derive their names from Nergal-Serezer, the Assyrian god, and the Hindu Nagas. Both have the same faculties and the power to have an attendant daemon, with whom they identify themselves completely. The Chaldean and Assyrian Nargal kept his daemon, in the shape of some animal considered sacred, inside the temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can -- in the neighbouring lake, or wood, or in the house in the shape of some household animal."*

* Brasseur de Bourbourg: "Mexique," pp. 135 and 574.

Finally:

And here, again, we may quote from our earlier volumes and enter into further explanations.

"From this region of unfathomable depth (Bythos, Aditi, Shekinah, the veil of the unknown) issues forth a circle formed of spirals. This is Tiphereth; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand cycle, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the serpent -- emblem of Wisdom and Eternity -- the dual Androgyne; the cycle representing Ennoia, or the divine mind (a power which does not create but which must assimilate), and the serpent, the Agathodaemon, the Ophis, the Shadow of the Light (non-eternal, yet the greatest divine light on our plane). Both were the Logoi of the Ophites: or the Unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of Good and Evil."

Were it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate nor even realise it. Shadow is that which enables light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality. Therefore, shadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary which completes Light or Good: it is its creator on Earth. [Italics in original. - arpaxad]

And, as a corollary:

The above analysis does not confirm anything 100%. It gives indications.

Knight-Jadczyk, Laura (2012-05-02). Riding the Wave: The Truth and Lies About 2012 and Global Transformation (The Wave Series) (Kindle Locations 255-256). Red Pill Press. Kindle Edition.

----------------------------
Bottom line: Whether HPB knew about the "Lizzies" or not, or whether she knew of their connection to the powers that be, other than on the symbolic and astral (higher-densities) planes, is unclear to me.
 
arpaxad said:

Sorry, Perri475. You don't have to read what you don't want. Have you learned to control your intellectual center enough not to get into material that produces a vomiting response (unless you think it's healing)? It's a basic safeguard akin to that a child learns when he is taught not to put everything that he picks up into his mouth (even when he is at home!).

I'm not arguing the legitimacy of the information here, but I feel taking other's into consideration is more important than proving you're right..
arpaxad let a moment the serpent snaked because
it is meaning that you read external considering and good manners, it can be helpful for you and us.
https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,32518.0.html
 
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