Chapter LX: Section LI: The “doctrine of the Eye” & the “doctrine of the Heart,” or (9)

302 Only the Prince of the World is not Satan, as the translator would
make us believe, but the collective Host of the Planetary. This is a
little theological back‐biting.

303 Here the Elemental and Elementary Spirits are evidently meant.

304 The reader has already learned the truth about them in the course of
the present work.

305 Pity the penitent _Saint_ had not imparted his knowledge of the
rotation of the earth and helio‐centric system earlier to his
Church. That might have saved more than one human life—that of Bruno
for one.

306 Chelâs in their trials of initiation, also see _in trances
artificially generated for them_, the vision of the Earth supported
by an elephant on the top of a tortoise standing on nothing—and
this, to teach them to discern the true from the false.

307 Relating to the days of the year, also to 7 × 7 divisions of the
earth’s sublunary sphere, divided into seven upper and seven lower
spheres with their respective Planetary Hosts or “armies.”

308 Daimon is not “demon,” as translated by De Mirville, but Spirit.

309 All this is to corroborate his dogmatic assertions that Pater Æther
or Jupiter is Satan! and that pestilential diseases, cataclysms, and
even thunderstorms that prove disastrous, come from the Satanic Host
dwelling in Ether—a good warning to the men of Science!

310 The translator replaces the word Mediators by mediums, excusing
himself in a foot‐note by saying that Cyprian _must_ have meant
modern mediums!

311 Cyprianus simply meant to hint at the rites and mysteries of
Initiation, and the pledge of secresy and oaths that bound the
Initiates together. His translator, however, has made a Witches’
Sabbath of it instead.

312 “Twelve centuries later, in full renaissance and reform, the world
saw Luther do the same [embrace the Devil he means?]—according to
his own confession and in the same conditions,” explains De Mirville
in a foot‐note, showing thereby the brotherly love that binds
Christians. Now Cyprianus meant by the Devil (if the word is really
in the original text) his Initiator and Hierophant. No Saint—even a
penitent Sorcerer—would be so silly as to speak of his (the Devil’s)
rising from his seat to see him to the door, were it otherwise.

313 Every Adept has “a principality after his death.”

314 Which shows that it was the Hierophant and his disciples. Cyprianus
shows himself as grateful as most of the other converts (the modern
included) to his Teachers and Instructors.

315 This is proved if we take but a single recorded instance. J. Picus
de Mirandola, finding that there was more Christianity than Judaism
in the _Kabalah_, and discovering in it the doctrines of the
Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Jesus, etc., wound up his
proofs of this with a challenge to the world at large from Rome. As
Ginsburg shows: “In 1486, when only twenty‐four years old, he
[Picus] published nine hundred [Kabalistic] _theses_, which were
placarded in Rome, and undertook to defend them in the presence of
all European scholars whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising
to defray their travelling expenses.”

316 This account is summarised from Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 10, _et
seq._

317 There is not in the decalogue one idea that is not the counterpart,
or the paraphrase, of the dogmas and ethics current among the
Egyptians long before the time of Moses and Aaron. (The Mosaic Law a
transcript from Egyptian Sources; vide _Geometry in Religion_,
1890.)

318 _Book of God._ Kenealy, p. 383. The reference to Klaproth is also
from this page.

319 See _Asiat. Jour._, N.S. vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.

320 _Book of God_, _loc. cit._

321 _Op. cit._, v. 15.

322 _Prolegomena_, iii. 13, quoted by Kenealy, p. 385.

323 See _Book of God_, p. 385. “Care should be taken,” says Butler
(quoted by Kenealy, p. 489), “to distinguish between the Pentateuch
in the Hebrew language but in the letters of the Samaritan alphabet,
and the version of the Pentateuch in the Samaritan language. One of
the most important differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew
text respects the duration of the period between the deluge and the
birth of Abraham. The Samaritan text makes it longer by some
centuries than the Hebrew text; and the Septuagint makes it longer
by some centuries than the Samaritan.” It is observable that in the
authentic translation of the Latin Vulgate, the Roman Church follows
the computation expressed in the Hebrew text; and in her Martyrology
follows that of the Seventy, both texts being inspired, as she
claims.

324 See Rev. Joseph Wolff’s _Journal_, p. 200.

325 A tree is symbolically a book—as “pillar” is another synonym of the
same.

326 The wife of Moses, one of the seven daughters of a Midian priest, is
called Zipora. It was Jethro, the priest of Midian, who initiated
Moses, Zipora, one of the seven daughters, being simply one of the
seven Occult powers that the Hierophant was and is supposed to pass
to the initiated novice.

327 See for these details the _Book of God_, pp. 244, 250.

328 _Op. cit._ v. 85.

329 As is fully shown in the _Source of Measures_ and other works.

330 Surely even Masons would never claim the _actual_ existence of
Solomon? As Kenealy shows, he is not noticed by Herodotus, nor by
Plato, nor by any writer of standing. It is most extraordinary, he
says, “that the Jewish nation, over whom but a few years before the
mighty Solomon had reigned in all his glory, with a magnificence
scarcely equalled by the greatest monarchs, spending nearly _eight
thousand millions_ of gold on a temple, was overlooked by the
historian Herodotus, writing of Egypt on the one hand, and of
Babylon on the other—visiting both places, and of course passing
almost necessarily within a few miles of the splendid capital of the
national Jerusalem? How can this be accounted for?” he asks (p.
457). Nay, not only are there no proofs of the twelve tribes of
Israel having ever existed, but Herodotus, the most accurate of
historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions
the Israelites at all; and Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. How is
this?

331 Clement, _Stromateis_, xxii.

332 _Book of God_, p. 408.

333 _Book of God_, p. 453.

334 _Asiatic Journal_, vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.

335 _Book of God_, p. 385.

336 Speaking of the hidden meaning of the Sanskrit words, Mr. T. Subba
Row, in his able article on “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” gives
some advice as to the way in which one should proceed to find out
“the deep significance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old
Âryan myths. 1. Find out the synonyms of the word used which have
other meanings. 2. Find out the numerical value of the letters
composing the word according to the methods of the ancient Tântrik
works [_Tântrika Shâstra_—works on Incantation and Magic]. 3.
Examine the ancient myths or allegories, if there are any, which
have any special connection with the word in question. 4. Permute
the different syllables composing the word and examine the new
combinations that will thus be formed and their meanings,” etc. But
he does not give the principal rule. And no doubt he is quite right.
The Tântrika _Shâstras_ are as old as Magic itself. Have they also
borrowed their Esotericism from the Hebrews?

337 Their founder, Sadoc, was the pupil, through Antigonus Saccho, of
Simon the Just. They had their own secret _Book of the Law_ ever
since the foundation of their sect (about 400 B.C.) and this volume
was unknown to the masses. At the time of the Separation the
Samaritans recognised only the _Book of the Law of Moses_ and the
_Book of Joshua_, and their _Pentateuch_ is far older, and is
different from the Septuagint. In 168 B.C. Jerusalem had its temple
plundered, and its Sacred Books—namely, the _Bible_ made up by Ezra
and finished by Judas Maccabeus—were lost (see Burder’s _Josephus_,
vol. ii. pp. 331‐335); after which the _Massorah_ completed the work
of destruction (even of Ezra’s once‐more adjusted _Bible_) begun by
the change into square from horned letters. Therefore the later
_Pentateuch_ accepted by the Pharisees was rejected and laughed at
by the Sadducees. They are generally called atheists; yet, since
those learned men, who made no secret of their freethought,
furnished from among their number the most eminent of the Jewish
high‐priests, this seems impossible. How could the Pharisees and the
other two believing and pious sects allow notorious atheists to be
selected for such posts? The answer is difficult to find for bigotry
and for believers in a personal, anthropomorphic God, but very easy
for those who accept facts. The Sadducees were called atheists
because they believed as the initiated Moses believed, thus
differing very widely from the latter made‐up Jewish legislator and
hero of Mount Sinai.

338 The measurements of the Great Pyramid being those of the temple of
Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant, etc., according to Piazzi
Smythe and the author of the _Source of Measures_, and the Pyramid
of Gizeh being shown on astronomical calculations to have been built
4950 B.C., and Moses having _written_ his books—for the sake of
argument—not even half that time before our era, how can this be?
Surely if any one borrowed from the other, it is not the Pharaohs
from Moses. Even philology shows not only the Egyptian, but even the
Mongolian, older than the Hebrew.

339 This alone shows how the Books of Moses were tampered with. In
_Samuel_ (ix. 9), it is said: “He that is now a prophet [Nabhi] was
beforetime called a Seer [Roch].” Now since before _Samuel_, the
word “Roch” is met nowhere in the _Pentateuch_, but its place is
always taken by that of “Nabhi,” this proves clearly that the Mosaic
text has been replaced by that of the later Levites. (See for fuller
details _Jewish Antiquities_, by the Rev. D. Jennings, D.D.)

340 _Zohar_, i, 2a.

341 _Zohar_, 42b.

342 _Zohar_, i, 2a. See Dr. Ch. Ginsburg’s essay on _The Cabbalah, its
Doctrines, Developments and Literature_.

343 Cudworth, I. iii, quoted by Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14, note.

344 _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14.

345 Stanza i, 4.

346 _Mishna_, i. 9.

347 In its manifested state it becomes Ten, the Universe. In the
Chaldæan _Kabalah_ it is sexless. In the Jewish, Shekinah is female,
and the early Christians and Gnostics regarded the Holy Ghost as a
female potency. In the _Book of Numbers_ “Shekina” is made to drop
the final “h” that makes it a feminine name. Nârâyana, the Mover on
the Waters, is also sexless; but it is our firm belief that Shekinah
and Daiviprakriti, the “Light of the Logos,” are one and the same
thing philosophically.

348 The Elohim create the Adam of dust, and in him Jehovah‐Binah
separates himself into Eve, after which the male portion of God
becomes the Serpent, tempts himself in Eve, then creates himself in
her as Cain, passes into Seth, and scatters from Enoch, the Son of
Man, or Humanity, as Jodheva.

349 _The Source of Measures_, p. 8.

350 This identifies Sephira, the third potency, with Jehovah the Lord,
who says to Moses out of the burning bush: “(Here) I am.” (_Exodus_,
iii, 4.) At this time the “Lord” had not yet become Jehovah. It was
not the one Male God who spoke, but the Elohim manifested, or the
Sephiroth in their manifested collectivity of seven, contained in
the triple Sephira.

351 The Brâhmans were wise in their generation when they gradually, for
no other reason than this, abandoned Brahmâ, and paid less attention
to him individually than to any other deity. As an abstract
synthesis they worshipped him collectively and in every God, each of
which represents him. As Brahmâ, the male, he is far lower than
Shiva, the Lingam, who personates universal generation, or Vishnu,
the preserver—both Shiva and Vishnu being the regenerators of life
after destruction. The Christians might do worse than follow their
example, and worship God in Spirit, and not in the male Creator.

352 A plural word, signifying a collective host generically; literally,
the “strong lion.”

353 The writer possesses only a few extracts, some dozen pages in all,
verbatim quotations from that priceless work, of which but two or
three copies, perhaps, are still extant.

354 Aye; but that _spirituality_ can never be discovered, far less
proved, unless we turn to the Âryan Scriptures and Symbology. For
the Jews it was lost, save for the Sadducees, from the day that the
“chosen people” reached the Promised Land, the national Karma
preventing Moses from reaching it.

355 _Op. cit._, pp. 317‐319.

356 _The Book of God_, pp. 388, 389.

357 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted
by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.

358 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted
by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.

359 The author says that Parker’s _quadrature_ is “that identical
measure which was used anciently as the perfect measure, by the
Egyptians, in the construction of the Great Pyramid, which was built
to _monument it and its uses_,” and that “from it the _sacred cubit‐
value was derived_, which was the cubit‐value used in the
construction of the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of Noah, and the Ark
of the Covenant” (p. 22). This is a grand discovery, no doubt, but
it only shows that the Jews profited well by their captivity in
Egypt, and that Moses was a great Initiate.

360 See _Theosophist_, November, 1879, art. “Hindu Music,” p. 47.

361 The Sanskrit letters are far more numerous than the poor twenty‐two
letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are all musical, and they are
read—or rather chanted—according to a system given in very old
Tântrika works, and are called Devanâgarî, the speech, or language,
of the Gods. And since each letter answers to a numeral, the
Sanskrit affords a far larger scope for expression, and it must
necessarily be far more perfect than the Hebrew, which followed the
same system but could apply it only in a very limited way. If either
of these two languages, were taught to humanity by the Gods, surely
it would more likely be the Sanskrit, the perfect form of the most
perfect language on earth, than the Hebrew, the roughest and the
poorest. For once anyone believes in a language of divine origin, he
can hardly believe at the same time that Angels or Gods or any
divine Messengers have had to develop it from a rough monosyllabic
form into a perfect one, as we see in terrestrial linguistic
evolution.

362 In the first chapter of _Genesis_ the word “God” represents the
Elohim—Gods in the plural, not one God. This is a cunning and
dishonest translation. For the whole _Kabalah_ explains sufficiently
that the Alhim (Elohim) are seven; each creates one of the seven
things enumerated in the first chapter, and these answer
allegorically to the seven creations. To make this clear, count the
verses in which it is said “And God saw that it was good,” and you
will find that this is said seven times—in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21,
25, and 31. And though the compilers cunningly represent the
creation of man as occurring on the sixth day, yet, having made man
“male and female in the image of God,” the Seven Elohim repeat the
sacramental sentence, “It was good,” for the seventh time, thus
making of man the seventh creation, and showing the origin of this
bit of cosmogony to be in the Hindu creations. The Elohim are, of
course, the seven Egyptian Khnûmû, the “assistant‐architects”; the
seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians; the Seven Spirits subordinate
to Ildabaoth of the Nazareans; the seven Prajâpati of the Hindus,
etc.

363 _Gen._, ii. 21, 22.

364 _Op. cit._, p. 395, note.

365 The seventh esoterically, exoterically the sixth.

366 _Contra Hereses_, I, xviii, 2.

367 _Op. cit._ by Gerald Massey, p. 19.

368 _Op cit._, p. 278.

369 _The Hebrew and other Creations: with a reply to Professor A. H.
Sayce_, p. 19.

370 _Op. cit._, p. 243.

371 When they are the Anupâdakas (Parentless) of the Secret Doctrine.
See Stanzas, i, 9, Vol. i, 56.

372 These originated with the Âryans, who placed therein their “bright‐
crested” (Chitra‐Shikhandan) Seven Rishis. But all this is far more
Occult than appears on the surface.

373 _Op. cit._, pp. 19‐22.

374 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., i, 101. The period of these
Kumâras is Pre‐Adamic, _i.e._, before the separation of sexes, and
before humanity had received the creative, or sacred, fire of
Prometheus.

375 The Secret Doctrine says that this was the second creation, not the
first, and that it took place during the Third Race, when men
separated, _i.e._, began to be born as distinct men and women. See
Vol. ii. of this work, Stanzas and Commentaries.

376 This is a Western mangling of the Indian doctrine of the Kumâras.

377 He was regarded by several Gnostic sects as one with Jehovah. See
_Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii. p. 184.

378 Or “man, son of man.” The Church found in this a _prophecy_ and a
confession of Christ, the “Son of Man!”

379 See Stanza ii. 5, Secret Doctrine, ii. 16.

380 _Op. cit._, pp. 23, 24.

381 The _Sepher Jetzirah_ now known is but a portion of the original one
incorporated in the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_. The fragment now in
possession of the Western Kabalists is one greatly tampered with by
the Rabbis of the Middle Ages, as its masoretic points show. The
“Masorah” scheme is a modern blind, dating after our era and
perfected in Tiberias. (See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii, pp. 430‐431.)

382 In the oldest symbolism—that used in the Egyptian hieroglyphics—when
the bull’s head only is found it means the Deity, the Perfect
Circle, with the procreative power latent in it. When the whole bull
is represented, a solar God, a _personal_ deity is meant, for it is
then the symbol of the acting generative power.

383 It took three Root‐Races to degrade the symbol of the One Abstract
Unity manifested in Nature as a Ray emanating from infinity (the
Circle) into a phallic symbol of generation, as it was even in the
_Kabalah_. This degradation began with the Fourth Race, and had its
_raison d’etre_, in Polytheism, as the latter was invented to screen
the One Universal Deity from profanation. The Christians may plead
ignorance of its meaning as an excuse for its acceptance. But why
sing never‐ceasing laudations to the Mosaic Jews who repudiated all
the other Gods, preserved the most phallic, and then most impudently
proclaimed themselves Monotheists? Jesus ever steadily ignored
Jehovah. He went against the Mosaic commandments. He recognized his
Heavenly Father alone, and prohibited public worship.

384 Is it everything to have found out that the celestial circle of 360°
is determined by “the full word‐form of Elohim,” and that this
yields, when the word is placed in a circle, “3.1415, or the
relation of circumference to a diameter of _one_.” This is only its
astronomical or mathematical aspect. To know the full _septenary_
significance of the “Primordial Circle,” the pyramid and the
Kabalistic _Bible_ must be read in the light of the figure on which
the temples of India are built. The mathematical squaring of the
circle is only the terrestrial _résumé_ of the problem. The Jews
were content with the six days of activity and the seventh of rest.
The progenitors of mankind solved the greatest problems of the
Universe with their seven Rays or Rishis.

385 _Genesis_ begins with the _third_ stage of “creation,” skipping the
preliminary two.

386 The three _root_‐principles are, exoterically: Man, Soul, and Spirit
(meaning by “man” the intelligent personality), and esoterically:
Life, Soul, and Spirit; the four vehicles are Body, Astral double,
Animal (or human) Soul, and Divine Soul (Sthûla‐Sharîra, Linga‐
Sharîra, Kâma‐rûpa, and Buddhi, the vehicle of Âtma or Spirit). Or,
to make it still clearer: (1) the _Seventh_ Principle has for its
vehicle the Sixth (Buddhi); (2) the vehicle of Manas is Kâma‐rûpa;
(3) that of Jîva or Prâna (life) is the Linga‐Sharîra (the “double”
of man; the Linga‐Sharîra proper can never leave the body till
death; that which appears is an astral body, reflecting the physical
body and serving as a vehicle for the human soul, or intelligence);
and (4) the Body, the physical vehicle of all the above
collectively. The Occultist recognizes the same order as existing
for the cosmical totality, the _psycho_‐cosmical Universe.

387 St. Denys, the Areopagite, the supposed contemporary of St. Paul,
his co‐disciple, and first Bishop of St. Denis, near Paris, teaches
that the bulk of the “work of creation” was performed by the
“_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence”—God’s _co‐operators_, owing to a
participation of the divinity in them. (_Hierarch._, p. 196.) And
Saint Augustine also thinks that “things were rather created in the
angelic minds than in Nature, that is to say, that the angels
perceived and knew them (all things) in their thoughts before they
could spring forth into actual existence.” (_Vid. De Genesis ad
Litteram_ p. II.) (Summarized from De Mirville, Vol. II., pp.
337‐338.) Thus the early Christian Fathers, even a non‐initiate like
St. Augustine, ascribed the creation of the visible world to Angels,
or Secondary Powers, while St. Denys not only specifies these as the
“_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence,” but shows them owing their power
to the informing divine energy—Fohat in the Secret Doctrine. But the
egotistical darkness which caused the Western races to cling so
desperately to the _Geo_‐centric System, made them also neglect and
despise all those fragments of the true Religion which would have
deprived them and the little globe they took for the centre of the
Universe of the signal honour of having been expressly “created” by
the One, Secondless, Infinite God!

388 De Mirville, ii. 295.

389 To the Occultist and Chelâ the difference made between _Energy_ and
Emanation need not be explained. The Sanskrit word “Sakti” is
untranslatable. It may be Energy, but it is one that proceeds
through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the
one that produces it. The “First‐Born,” or Logos, is not an
Emanation, but an Energy inherent in and co‐eternal with
Parabrahman, the One. The _Zohar_ speaks of emanations, but reserves
the word for the seven Sephiroth emanated from the first three—which
form one triad—Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. As for these three, it
explains the difference by calling them “immanations,” something
inherent to and coëval with the subject postulated, or in other
words, “Energies.”

It is these “Auxiliaries,” the Auphanim, the half‐human Prajâpatis,
the Angels, the Architects under the leadership of the “Angel of the
Great Council,” with the rest of the Kosmos‐Builders of other
nations, that can alone explain the imperfection of the Universe.
This imperfection is one of the arguments of the Secret Science in
favour of the existence and activity of these “Powers.” And who know
better than the few philosophers of our civilised lands how near the
truth Philo was in ascribing the origin of evil to the admixture of
inferior potencies in the arrangement of matter, and even in the
formation of man—a task entrusted to the divine Logos.

390 _Psalms_ cxxxv. 5.

391 _Psalms_ xcvi. 5.

392 Rather as Ormazd or Ahura‐Mazda, Vit‐nam‐Ahmi, and all the
unmanifested Logoi. Jehovah is the manifested Virâj, corresponding
to Binah, the third Sephira in the _Kabalah_, a female Power which
would find its prototype rather in the Prajâpati, than in Brahmâ,
the Creator.

393 Neith is Aditi, evidently.

394 The Self‐created Logos, Nârâyana, Purushottama, and others.

395 _Mère d’Apis_, pp. 32‐35. Quoted by De Mirville.

396 See _Republic_, I. vi.

397 _Harmonie entre l’Église et la Synagogue_, t. II., p. 427, by the
Chevalier Drach. See De Mirville iv. 38, 39.

398 Julian died for the same crime as Socrates. Both divulged a portion
of the solar mystery, the heliocentric system being only a part of
what was given during Initiation—one consciously, the other
unconsciously, the Greek Sage never having been initiated. It was
not the real solar system that was preserved in such secrecy, but
the mysteries connected with the Sun’s constitution. Socrates was
sentenced to death by earthly and worldly judges; Julian died a
violent death because the hitherto protecting hand was withdrawn
from him, and, no longer shielded by it, he was simply left to his
destiny or Karma. For the student of Occultism there is a suggestive
difference between the two kinds of death. Another memorable
instance of the unconscious divulging of secrets pertaining to
mysteries is that of the poet, P. Ovidius Naso, who, like Socrates,
had not been initiated. In his case, the Emperor Augustus, who was
an Initiate, mercifully changed the penalty of death into banishment
to Tomos on the Euxine. This sudden change from unbounded royal
favour to banishment has been a fruitful scheme of speculation to
classical scholars not initiated into the Mysteries. They have
quoted Ovid’s own lines to show that it was some great and heinous
immorality of the Emperor of which Ovid had become unwillingly
cognizant. The inexorable law of the death penalty, always following
upon the revelation of any portion of the Mysteries to the profane,
was unknown to them. Instead of seeing the amiable and merciful act
of the Emperor in its true light, they have made it an occasion for
traducing his moral character. The poet’s own words can be no
evidence, because as he was not an Initiate, it could not be
explained to him in what his offence consisted. There have been
comparatively modern instances of poets unconsciously revealing in
their verses so much of the hidden knowledge as to make even
Initiates suppose them to be fellow‐Initiates, and come to talk to
them on the subject. This only shows that the sensitive poetic
temperament is sometimes so far transported beyond the bounds of
ordinary sense as to get glimpses into what has been impressed on
the Astral Light. In the _Light of Asia_ there are two passages that
might make an Initiate of the first degree think that Mr. Edwin
Arnold had been initiated himself in the Himâlyan _âshrams_, but
this is not so.

399 A proof that Julian was acquainted with the heliocentric system.

400 _La Gravitation par l’Electricité_, p. 7, quoted by De Mirville; iv.
156.

401 De Mirville, iv. 157.

402 _Memoir on the Solar System_, p. 7, De Mirville, iv. 157.

403 _Essai sur l’ Identité des Agents Producteurs du Son, de la
Lumière_, etc., p. 15, _Ibid._

404 _Ibid._, p. 218.

405 Summarised from _Ibid._, p. 213. De Mirville, iv. 158.

406 May, 1855. _Ibid._, p. 139.

407 _La Terre et notre Système solaire._ De Mirville, iv. 139.

408 If, as Sir W. Herschel thought, the so‐called fixed stars have
resulted from, and owe their origin to nebular combustion, they
cannot be fixed any more than is our sun, which was believed to be
motionless and is now found to rotate around its axis every twenty‐
five days. As the fixed star nearest to the sun, however, is eight‐
thousand times farther away from him than is Neptune, the illusions
furnished by the telescopes must be also eight‐thousand times as
great. We will therefore leave the question at rest, repeating only
what A. Maury said in his work (_La Terre et l’Homme_, published in
1858): “It is utterly impossible, so far, to decide anything
concerning Neptune’s constitution, analogy alone authorising us to
ascribe to him a rotary motion like that of other planets” (De
Mirville, iv. 140).

409 _Exposition du vrai Système du Monde_, p. 282.

410 See the passage quoted by Herschel in _Natural Philosophy_, p. 165.
De Mirville, iv. 105.

411 _Loc. cit._

412 _Terre et Ciel_, p. 28. _Ibid._

413 _Œuvres d’Arago_, vol. i., p. 219; quoted by De Mirville, iii. 462.

414 “_Die Sterne sind vielleicht ein Sitz verklarter Geister;_
_Wie hier das Laster herrscht, ist dort die Tugend Meister._”

415 _Op. cit._, p. 411.

416 Whenever Occult doctrines were expounded in the pages of _The
Theosophist_, care was taken each time to declare a subject
incomplete when the whole could not be given in its fulness, and no
writer has ever tried to mislead the reader. As to the Western
“ranges of perception” concerning doctrines really Occult, the
Eastern Occultists have been made acquainted with them for some time
past. Thus they are enabled to assert with confidence that the West
may be in possession of Hermetic philosophy as a speculative system
of dialectics, the latter being used in the West admirably well, but
it lacks entirely the knowledge of Occultism. The genuine Eastern
Occultist keeps silent and unknown, never publishes what he knows,
and rarely even speaks of it, as he knows too well the penalty of
indiscretion.

417 See _The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, art. “Sepher Jetzirah.”

418 In the exoteric sense, the Mantra (or that psychic faculty or power
that conveys perception or thought) is the older portion of the
_Vedas_, the second part of which is composed of the _Brâhmanas_. In
Esoteric phraseology Mantra is the Word made flesh, or rendered
objective, through divine magic.

419 The secret meaning of the word “Brahmâ” is “expansion,” “increase,”
or “growth.”

420 Why not give at once its theological meaning, as we find it in
Webster? With the Roman Catholics it means simply “purgatory,” the
borderland between heaven and hell (_Limbus patrum_ and _Limbus
infantum_), the one for all men, whether good, bad or indifferent;
the other for the souls of unbaptized children! With the ancients it
meant simply that which in _Esoteric Buddhism_ is called the Kâma
Loka, between Devachan and Avitchi.

421 As Chaos, the eternal Element, not as the Kâma Loka surely.

422 A proof that by this word Éliphas Lévi means the lowest region of
the terrestrial Âkâsha.

423 Evidently he is concerned only with our periodical world, or the
terrestrial globe.

424 In the “reäwakening” of the Forces would be more correct.

425 An action which is incessant in eternity cannot be called
“creation;” it is evolution, and the eternally or ever‐becoming of
the Greek Philosopher and the Hindu Vedântin; it is the Sat and the
one Beingness of Parmenides, or the Being identical with Thought.
Now how can the Potencies be said to “create movement,” once it is
seen movement never had any beginning, but existed in the Eternity?
Why not say that the reawakened Potencies transferred motion from
the eternal to the temporal plane of being? Surely this is not
Creation.

426 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 1.

427 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 2.

428 The Vaishnavas, who regard Vishnu as the Supreme God and the
fashioner of the Universe, claim that Brahmâ sprang from the navel
of Vishnu, the “imperishable,” or rather from the lotus that grew
from it. But the “navel” here means the Central Point, the
mathematical symbol of infinitude, or Parabrahman, the One and the
Secondless.

429 _Ecclesiastes_, i. 12, 13.

430 It is probably needless to say here what everyone knows. The
translation of the Protestant _Bible_ is not a word for word
rendering of the earlier Greek and Latin _Bibles_: the sense is very
often disfigured, and “God” is put where “Jahve” and “Elohim” stand.

431 _Psalms_, civ. 2, 3.

432 To avoid misunderstanding of the word “creation” so often used by
us, the remarks of the author of _Through the Gates of Gold_ may be
quoted owing to their clearness and simplicity. “The words ‘to
create’ are often understood by the ordinary mind to convey the idea
of evolving something out of nothing. This is clearly not its
meaning. We are mentally obliged to provide our Creator with chaos
from which to produce the worlds. The tiller of the soil, who is the
typical producer of social life, must have his material: his earth,
his sky, rain and sun, and the seeds to place within the earth. Out
of nothing he can produce nothing. Out of a void nature cannot
arise; there is that material beyond, behind, or within, from which
she is shaped by our desire for a Universe.” (P. 72.)

433 Commentary on Stanza ix. on Cycles.

434 Or, read from right to left, the letters and their corresponding
numerals stand thus: “t,” 4; “h,” 5; “bh,” 2; “v,” 6; “v,” 6; “h,”
5; “v” or “w,” 6; which yields “thuvbhu,” 4566256, or “Tohu‐vah‐
bohu.”

435 Mr. Ralston Skinner’s MSS.

436 That the teraphim was a statue, and no small article either, is
shown in _Samuel_ xix., where Michal takes a teraphim (“image,” as
it is translated) and puts it in bed to represent David, her
husband, who ran away from Saul (see verse 13, _et seq._). It was
thus of the size and shape of a human figure—a statue or real
_idol_.

437 _Op. cit._, iii. 4

438 Louis de Dieu, _Genesis_, xxxi. 19. See De Mirville, iii. 257.

439 “The teraphim of Abram’s father, Terah, the ‘maker of images,’ were
the Kabeiri Gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the
Danites, and others. (_Judges_, xvii.‐xviii., etc.) Teraphim were
identical with seraphim, and these were serpent images, the origin
of which is in the Sanskrit ‘Sarpa’ (the ‘serpent’) a symbol sacred
to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the God
Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Shiva, the
Hindu Saturn. (The Zendic ‘h’ is ‘s’ in India; thus, ‘Hapta’ is
‘Sapta;’ ‘Hindu’ is ‘Sindbaya.’ (A. Wilder)) ‘The “s” continually
softens to “h” from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt,’
says Dunlap. Therefore the letters ‘k,’ ‘h,’ and ‘s’ are
interchangeable. The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian,
having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and
thence to Troy; and they were worshipped long before the days of
glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C.
From where did Dardanus derive them?” _Isis Unveiled_, i. 570.

440 Maimon, _More Nevochim_, III. xxx.

441 Those dedicated to the sun were made in gold, and those to the moon
in silver.

442 _De Diis Syriis, Teraph._ II. Syat, p. 31.

443 Those that the Kabalists call _elementary_ spirits are sylphs,
gnomes, undines and salamanders, nature‐spirits, in short. The
spirits of the angels formed a distinct class.

444 _Œdipus_, ii. 444.

445 _Op. cit._, xxv. 22 _et seq._

446 The ephod was a linen garment worn by the high priest, but as the
thummim was attached to it, the entire paraphernalia of divination
was often comprised in that single word, ephod. See I. _Sam._,
xxviii. 6, and xxx. 7, 8.

447 _Paganism and Judaism_, iv. 197.

448 _Op. cit._, I. vi. 5.

449 _Discourse to the Gentiles_, p. 146.

450 _De Gener._, I, II. iv.

451 See _Cosmos_, by Ménage, I., vi., § 101.

452 _Op. cit._, I. ii.

453 “The characters employed on those parchments,” writes De Mirville,
“are sometimes hieroglyphics, placed perpendicularly, a kind of
lineary tachygraphy (abridged characters), where the image is often
reduced to a simple stroke; at other times placed in horizontal
lines; then the hieratic or sacred writing, going from right to left
as in all Semitic languages; lastly, the characters of the country,
used for official documents, mostly contracts, etc., but which since
the Ptolemies has been also adopted for the monuments,” v. 81, 82. A
copy of the Harris papyrus, translated by Chabas—_Papyrus
magique_—may be studied at the British Museum.

454 And what of the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” the words that “the
fingers of a man’s hand,” whose body and arm remained invisible,
wrote on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace? (_Daniel_, v.) What of
the writings of Simon the Magician, and the magic characters on the
walls and in the air of the crypts of Initiation, without mentioning
the tables of stone on which the finger of God wrote the
commandments? Between the writing of one God and other Gods the
difference, if any, lies only in their respective natures; and if
the tree is to be known by its fruits, then preference would have to
be given always to the Pagan Gods. It is the immortal “To be or not
to be.” Either all of them are—or at any rate, may be—true, or all
are surely pious frauds and the result of credulity.

455 _Papyrus Magique_, p. 186.

456 See Maspero’s _Guide to the Bulak Museum_, among others.

457 De Mirville (from whom much of the preceding is taken), v. 81, 85.

458 See De Mirville, v. 84, 85.

459 One sees this difficulty arise even with a perfectly known language
like Sanskrit, the meaning of which is far easier to comprehend than
the hieratic writings of Egypt. Everyone knows how hopelessly the
Sanskritists are often puzzled over the real meaning and how they
fail in rendering the meaning correctly in their respective
translations, in which one Orientalist contradicts the other.

460 _Op. cit._, i. 297.

461 Book II., Commentary.

462 Bunsen and Champollion so declare, and Dr. Carpenter says that the
_Book of the Dead_, sculptured on the oldest monuments, with “the
very phrases we find in the _New Testament_ in connection with the
Day of Judgment ... was engraved probably 2,000 years before the
time of Christ.” (See _Isis Unveiled_, i., 518.)

463 De Mirville, v. 88. Just such a calendar and horoscope interdictions
exist in India in our day, as well as in China and all the Buddhist
countries.

464 See De Mirville, iii. 65.

465 _Pap. Mag._, p. 163.

466 _Ibid._, p. 168.

467 Maimonides in his _Treatise on Idolatry_ says, speaking of the
Jewish teraphim: “They talked with men.” To this day Christian
Sorcerers in Italy, and negro Voodoos at New Orleans fabricate small
wax figures in the likeness of their victims, and transpierce them
with needles, the _wound_, as on the teraphim or Menh, being
repercussed on the living, often killing them. Mysterious deaths are
still many, and not all are traced to the guilty hand.

468 The Ramses of Lepsius, who reigned some 1300 years before our era.

469 One may judge how trustworthy are the translations of such Egyptian
documents when the sentence is rendered in three different ways by
three Egyptologists. Rougé says: “He found her in a state _to fall
under the power of spirits_,” or “with her limbs quite stiff,” (?)
another version; and Chabas translates: “And the Scribe found the
Khou too wicked.” Between her being in possession of an evil Khou
and “with her limbs quite stiff,” there is a difference.

470 De Mirville, v. 247, 248.

471 Some translators would have Lucian speak of the inhabitants of the
city, but they fail to show that this view is maintainable.

472 De Mirville, v. 256, 257.

473 How can de Mirville see Satan in the Egyptian God of the great
divine Name, when he himself admits that nothing was greater than
the name of the oracle of Dodona, as it was that of the God of the
Jews, IAO, or Jehovah? That oracle had been brought by the
Pelasgians to Dodona more than fourteen centuries B.C. and left with
the forefathers of the Hellenes, and its history is well‐known and
may be read in Herodotus. Jupiter, who loved the fair nymph of the
ocean, Dodona, had ordered Pelasgus to carry his cult to Thessaly.
The name of the God of that oracle at the temple of Dodona was Zeus
Pelasgicos, the Zeuspater (God the Father), or as De Mirville
explains: “It was the name _par excellence_, the name that the Jews
held as the ineffable, the unpronounceable Name—in short, _Jaoh‐
pater_, _i.e._, ‘he who was, who is, and who will be,’ otherwise the
Eternal.” And the author admits that Maury is right “in discovering
in the name of the Vaidic Indra the Biblical Jehovah,” and does not
even attempt to deny the etymological connection between the two
names—“the _great_ and the _lost_ name with the sun and the thunder‐
bolts.” Strange confessions, and still stranger contradictions.

474 Reuvens’ _Letter to Letronne on the 75th number of the Papyri
Anastasi_. See De Mirville. v. 258.

475 The Eleusinian Fields.

476 _Fragments_, ix.

477 _De Legibus_, II. iv.

478 _Judaism and Paganism_, i. 184.

479 _Frag. of Styg., ap. Stob._

480 _De Special. Legi._

481 De Mirville, v. 278, 279.

482 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 25.

483 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 282, 283.

484 De Mirville, v. 248.

485 De Mirville, v. 281.

486 Tod’s Rajasthan, i. 28.

487 _Op. cit._, ix. iii. 28.

488 _Vishnu Purâna_, iv. i. Wilson’s translation, iii. 248‐254.

489 There were no Brâhmans as a hereditary caste in days of old. In
those long‐departed ages a man became a Brâhman through personal
merit and Initiation. Gradually, however, despotism crept in, and
the son of a Brâhman was created a Brâhman by right of protection
first, then by that of heredity. The rights of blood replaced those
of real merit, and thus arose the body of Brâhmans, which was soon
changed into a powerful caste.

490 _Des Initiations Anciennes and Modernes._ “The mysteries,” says
Ragon, “were the gift of India.” In this he is mistaken, for the
Âryan race had brought the mysteries of Initiation from Atlantis.
Nevertheless he is right in saying that the mysteries preceded all
civilisations, and that by polishing the mind and morals of the
peoples they served as a base for all the laws—civil, political, and
religious.

491 _De Off._, i. 33.

492 _Des Initiations_, p. 22.

493 _Essais Historiques sur la Franc‐Maçonnerie_, pp. 142, 143.

494 The word “patriarch” is composed of the Greek word “Patria”
(“family,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and “Archos” (a “chief”), the
paternal principle. The Jewish Patriarchs who were pastors, passed
their name to the Christian Patriarchs; yet they were no priests,
but were simply the heads of their tribes, like the Indian Rishis.

495 There is no need to observe here that the resurrection of a really
dead body is an impossibility in Nature.

496 The kings of Hungary claimed that they could cure the jaundice; the
Dukes of Burgundy were credited with preserving people from the
plague; the kings of Spain delivered those possessed by the devil.
The prerogative of curing the king’s evil was given to the kings of
France, in reward for the virtues of good King Robert. Francis the
First, during a short stay at Marseilles for his son’s wedding,
touched and cured of that disease upwards of 500 persons. The kings
of England had the same privilege.

497 See Laurens’ _Essais Historiques_ for further information as to the
world‐wide, universal knowledge of the Egyptian Priests.

498 _Des Initiations_, p. 24.

499 The word comes from the Greek “hieros” (“sacred”) and “glupho” (“I
grave”). The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods, as the
Indian Devanâgarî is the language of the Gods.

500 The same author had (as Occultists have) a very reasonable objection
to the modern etymology of the word “philosophy,” which is
interpreted “love of wisdom,” and is nothing of the kind. The
philosophers were scientists, and philosophy was a real science—not
simply verbiage, as it is in our day. The term is composed of two
Greek words whose meaning is intended to convey its secret sense,
and ought to be interpreted as “wisdom of love.” Now it is in the
last word, “love,” that lies hidden the esoteric significance: for
“love” does not stand here as a noun, nor does it mean “affection”
or “fondness,” but is the term used for Eros, that primordial
principle in divine creation, synonymous with πόθος, the abstract
desire in Nature for procreation, resulting in an everlasting series
of phenomena. It means “divine love,” that universal element of
divine omnipresence spread throughout Nature and which is at once
the chief cause and effect. The “wisdom of love” (or “philosophia,”)
meant attraction to and love of everything hidden beneath objective
phenomena and the knowledge thereof. Philosophy meant the highest
Adeptship—love of and assimilation with Deity. In his modesty
Pythagoras even refused to be called a Philosopher (or one who knows
every hidden thing in things visible; cause and effect, or absolute
truth), and called himself simply a Sage an aspirant to philosophy,
or to Wisdom of Love—love in its exoteric meaning being as degraded
by men then as it is now by its purely terrestrial application.

501 _Lev._, xix. 18.

502 “On,” the “Sun,” the Egyptian name of Heliopolis (the “City of the
Sun”).

503 _Book of God_, p. 160.

504 Mr. Kenealy quotes, in his _Book of God_, Vallancey, who says: “I
had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I had
studied Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries, when I
heard a peasant girl say to a boor standing by her ‘_Feach an Maddin
Nag_’ (‘Behold the morning star’), pointing to the planet Venus, the
Maddena Nag of the Chaldeans.”

505 There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had
one religion, as they were of “one lip.” “All the religions of the
earth were at first one, and emanated from one centre,” says Faber.

506 _Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 69, 70.

507 Sûrya, the Sun, is one of the nine divinities that witness all human
actions.

508 [There is a gap in H. P. B.’s MS., and the paragraph in brackets
supplies what was missing.—A. B.]

509 In _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II., pp. 41, 42, a portion of this rite is
referred to. Speaking of the dogma of Atonement, it is traced to
ancient “heathendom” again. We say: “This cornerstone of a church
which had believed herself built on a firm rock for long centuries,
is now excavated by science and proved to come from the Gnostics.
Professor Draper shows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian,
and as having ‘originated among the Gnostic heretics’ (see _Conflict
Between Religion and Science_, p. 224).... But there are sufficient
proofs to show that it _originated_ among them no more than did
their anointed Christos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the
original of the King Messiah, the male principle of wisdom, and the
latter on the third Sephiroth, from the Chaldæan _Kabalah_, and even
from the Hindu Brahmâ and Sarasvatî, and the Pagan Dionysius and
Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it
is now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its
complete form, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the
period of the apostles, and the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books
are found to belong to the first century before our era, if not to
be far older still.

“The Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the
Essenes had their greater and minor Mysteries at least two centuries
before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_, the
descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they had
been settled for several centuries before they were converted to
Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and
amalgamated later with the earliest Christians: and they existed,
probably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined
in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering
hordes. The hierophants had their atonement enacted in the Mystery
of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had
appeared. It was known among hierophants as the Baptism of Blood,
and was considered not as an atonement for the ‘fall of man’ in
Eden, but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future
sins of ignorant, but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant
had the option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a
sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an
animal victim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At
the last moment of the solemn ‘new birth,’ the Initiator passed ‘the
word’ to the initiated, and immediately after the latter had a
weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_. This
is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement.”

As Ballanche says, quoted by Ragon: “Destruction is the great God of
the World,” justifying therefore the philosophical conception of the
Hindu Shîva. According to this immutable and sacred law, “the
Initiate was compelled to kill the Initiator; otherwise initiation
remained incomplete.... It is death that generates life.”
_Orthodoxie maçonnique_, p. 104. All that, however, was emblematic
and exoteric. Weapon and killing must be understood in their
allegorical sense.

510 _Orthodoxie maçonnique_, pp. 102‐104.

511 _Op. cit._, i. 15.

512 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258. A curious question to start and
to deny, when it is well‐known even to the Orientalists that, to
take but one case, there is Yaska, who was a predecessor of Pânini,
and his work still exists; there are seventeen writers of Nirukta
(glossary) known to have preceded Yaska.

513 _La Mère d’Apis_, p. 47.

514 One just initiated is called the “first‐born,” and in India he
becomes dwija, “twice born,” only after his final and supreme
Initiation. Every Adept is a “Son of God” and a “Son of Light” after
receiving the “Word,” when he becomes the “Word” himself, after
receiving the seven divine attributes or the “lyre of Apollo.”

515 See De Mirville, iv. 15.

516 II. _Kings_, xxiii. 4‐13.

517 _Judges_, xiii. 18. Samson, Manoah’s son, was an Initiate of that
“Mystery” Lord, Ja‐va; he was consecrated before his birth to become
a “Nazarite” (a chela) an Adept. His sin with Dalilah, and the
cropping of his long hair that “no razor was to touch” shows how
well he kept his sacred vow. The allegory of Samson proves the
Esotericism of the _Bible_, as also the character of the “Mystery
Gods” of the Jews. True, Môvers gives a definition of the Phœnician
idea of the ideal sunlight as a spiritual influence issuing from the
highest God, Iao, “the light conceivable only by intellect—the
physical and spiritual Principle of all things; out of which the
soul emanates.” It was the male Essence, or Wisdom, while the
primitive matter or _Chaos_ was the female. Thus the first two
principles, co‐eternal and infinite, were already with the primitive
Phœnicians, spirit and matter. But this is the echo of Jewish
thought, not the opinion of Pagan Philosophers.

518 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 526.

519 Beth‐San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation; so had a
spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nyssa was
between Phœnicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came to
Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: “Osiris was
brought up in Nyssa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus,
and was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and
the place Dio‐Nysos”—the Zeus or Jove of Nyssa. This identity of
name or title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second
only to Zeus, and Pindar says: “So Father Zeus governs all things,
and Bacchus he governs also.”

520 _Ex._, xvii. 15.

521 _Phædrus_, Cary’s translation, p. 326.

522 _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 297. “Since Pythagoras,” he adds, “also
spent two and twenty years in the adyta of the temples in Egypt,
associated with the Magians in Babylon, and was instructed by them
in their venerable knowledge, it is not at all wonderful that he was
skilled in Magic or Theurgy, and was therefore able to perform
things which surpass merely human power, and which appear to be
perfectly incredible to the vulgar” (p. 298).

523 This expression must not be understood simply literally; for, as in
the initiation of certain Brotherhoods, it has a secret meaning that
we have just explained; it was hinted at by Pythagoras, when he
describes his feelings after the Initiation, and says that he was
crowned by the Gods in whose presence he had drunk “the waters of
life”—in the Hindu Mysteries there was the fount of life, and
_soma_, the sacred drink.

524 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, T. Taylor, p. 46, 47.

525 ii. 111, 113.

526 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, p. 63.

527 _Op. cit._, p. 65.

528 Quoted by Taylor, p. 66.

529 Verses 35‐38.

530 _Phædrus_, 64, quoted by Taylor, p. 64.

531 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 114.

532 This is false, and the Abbé Constant (Éliphas Lévi) _knew_ it was
so. Why did he promulgate the untruth?

533 _Dogme de la Haute Magie_, i. 219, 220.

534 _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 99.

535 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 214.

536 In I. _Peter_, ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Chrestos.”

537 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 323.

538 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 31.

539 The Âryans replaced the living cow by one made of gold, silver or
any other metal, and the rite is preserved to this day, when one
desires to become a Brâhman, a twice‐born, in India.

540 _Op. cit._, p. 141.

541 In Ragon’s _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 105, _note_, we find the
following statement—borrowed from Albumazar the Arabian, probably:
“_The Virgin of the Magi and Chaldæans._ The Chaldæan sphere [globe]
showed in its heavens a newly‐born babe, called _Christ and Jesus_;
it was placed in the arms of the Celestial Virgin. It was to this
Virgin that Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian Librarian, born 276 years
before our era, gave the name of Isis, mother of Horus.” This is
only what Kircher gives (in _Ædipus Ægypticus_, iii. 5), quoting
Albumazar: “In the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called
Aderenosa, that is pure, immaculate virgin ... sitting upon an
embroidered throne nursing a boy...; a boy, named Jessus ... which
signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.” (See _Isis
Unveiled_, ii. 491.)