T HE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL O EAOHOO IS ONE.
6.
T HE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION.
D ARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OR FATHER AND MOTHER.
7.
B EHOLD, OH L ANOO!
T HE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT GLORY: B RIGHT S PACE S ON OF D ARK S PACE, WHICH EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS.
I T IS O EAOHOO THE YOUNGER, THE * * * H E SHINES FORTH AS THE SON; HE IS THE BLAZING D IVINE D RAGON OF W ISDOM; THE O NE IS F OUR, AND F OUR TAKES TO ITSELF T HREE,** AND THE U NION PRODUCES THE S APTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN WHICH BECOME THE T RIDASA (OR THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES).
B EHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST.
H E SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION.
H E MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES, AND TURNS THE UPPER INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED INTO THE GREAT WATERS.
8.
W HERE WAS THE GERM AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS?
W HERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH L ANOO?
T HE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER.
9.
L IGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS WATER: THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.
10.
F ATHER- M OTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT -- THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS -- AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS SHADOWY END, MATTER; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS S VABHAVAT.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- ** In the English translation from the Sanskrit the numbers are given in that language, Eka, Chatur, etc., etc.
It was thought best to give them in English.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 30 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
11.
I T EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER TOUCHES IT.
T HEN THE SONS DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE GREAT DAY, AND RE-BECOME ONE WITH HER; WHEN IT IS COOLING IT BECOMES RADIANT, AND THE SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.
12.
T HEN S VABHAVAT SENDS F OHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS.
E ACH IS A PART OF THE WEB.
R EFLECTING THE " S ELF- E XISTENT L ORD" LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.
------- STANZA IV.
1.
.
.
.
L ISTEN, YE S ONS OF THE E ARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS -- THE S ONS OF THE F IRE.
L EARN, THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST, FOR ALL IS ONE: NUMBER ISSUED FROM NO NUMBER.
2.
L EARN WHAT WE WHO DESCEND FROM THE P RIMORDIAL S EVEN, WE WHO ARE BORN FROM THE P RIMORDIAL F LAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS.
.
.
.
3.
F ROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT -- THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS -- SPRUNG IN SPACE THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES; THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE FIVE.
T HEN THE THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE -- THE TWICE SEVEN THE SUM TOTAL.
A ND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS, THE ARUPA, THE RUPA, AND THE FORCE OF D IVINE M AN -- THE SUM TOTAL.
AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.
4.
T HIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE -- THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN.
T HE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN.
T HESE "SPARKS" ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE E TERNAL N IDANA -- THE O EAOHOO, WHICH IS: [[Vol.
1, Page]] 31 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
5.
" D ARKNESS" THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO-NUMBER, A DI- N IDANA S VABHAVAT: -- I.
T HE A DI- S ANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE.
II.
T HE VOICE OF THE L ORD S VABHAVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.
III.
T HE "FORMLESS SQUARE." A ND THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE ARE THE SACRED FOUR; AND THE TEN ARE THE ARUPA UNIVERSE.
T HEN COME THE "SONS," THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT-MAKER.
6.
T HEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE L IPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE.
T HE REJECTED SON IS ONE.
T HE " S ON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS.
------- STANZA V.
1.
T HE P RIMORDIAL S EVEN, THE F IRST S EVEN B REATHS OF THE D RAGON OF W ISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR H OLY C IRCUMGYRATING B REATHS THE F IERY W HIRLWIND.
2.
Divine archetypal beings or eternal attributes dwelling within the Pleroma, often arranged in male-female syzygies.
The Primordial Seven, the Sons, the Sparks, and the Sacred Four function as divine archetypal beings arranged in numerical hierarchies within the cosmic fullness.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The Sons dissociate and scatter, then return into their mother's bosom at the end of the great day and re-become one with her — a periodic restoration to the original state.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own essence — the primordial state is described through negation and self-negation rather than positive attributes.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
Reflecting the Self-Existent Lord like a mirror, each becomes in turn a world — each atom is a legible map of the whole.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The entire passage is a narrative of cosmic origin, describing how the universe emerged from the primordial One through successive stages of differentiation.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The Dark Hidden Father and the One Darkness from which the White Brilliant Son emerges suggest a supreme principle radically concealed beyond ordinary perception.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
Light is the primary mode of divine manifestation: the Ocean was Radiant Light, the Radiant Child, the Blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom, Light is Cold Flame — illumination as the nature of the divine.
Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.
The Sparks of the Seven are described as fragments of divine light that are subject to and servants of the Seven, scattered into the web of the universe.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage is structured as a cascading emanation from the One (OEAHOO) through Father-Mother, the Son, the Four, the Three, the Seven, the Thirteen, and the Sparks, each level flowing from the one above.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
Learn what we who descend from the Primordial Seven, we who are born from the Primordial Flame, have learnt from our fathers — a chain of transmission from primordial beings through successive generations.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
Father-Mother (Fire and Water) are the primary generative pair, and the masculine-feminine principle operates as a structural feature of the entire cosmogonic process.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The cosmos is described as boundless (Darkness the Boundless), shoreless (shoreless sea of fire), and the Sons embrace infinitude.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The Arupa (formless) universe, the realm of the Great Dark Waters, and the light-world of the Sons constitute non-physical dimensions interpenetrating the physical.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The web is spun from Spirit (upper end) to Matter (lower end), describing a directional descent of spirit into matter through successive planes, complemented by the return cycle.
The balance of two contrary forces as the structural law of cosmos and operation — Lévi's equilibrium, expressed in Kabbalah by the senary: the will of God in its first cause, liberty in man, mathematical equilibrium in matter; the twofold vibration required to direct the Astral Light safely.
The web is held between Spirit and Matter, Father and Mother, expansion and contraction — a structural balance of two contrary forces as the law of the cosmos.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
Each atom reflects the Self-Existent Lord like a mirror and becomes a world, making the smallest unit a privileged mirror of the totality.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
Numbers are the underlying structure of divine reality: One, Four, Three, Seven, Thirteen, the Sacred Four, the Ten Arupa, the Twice Seven — all cosmological principles are expressed numerically.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
Father/Mother, Fire/Water, Light/Darkness, expansion/contraction are presented as two poles of the same underlying reality (the One), differing in degree rather than kind.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
It expands when the breath of fire is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the mother touches it — a measured pendulum oscillation operating at the cosmic scale.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
OEAHOO IS ONE, all is one, the One is Four and Four takes to itself Three — the doctrine that all existence is ultimately one divine reality despite apparent multiplicity.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
Light is cold flame, flame is fire, fire produces heat, which yields water — a continuum of one substance differing only in degree, from the most subtle to the grossest.
A vertical structure connecting cosmic levels — a tree, pillar, mountain, or ladder linking heaven, earth, and underworld around which the cosmos is organised. Yggdrasil binding the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology, the Kalevala's Sampo as world-pillar, the Mayan ceiba, the Vedic Aśvattha, the shamanic central tree of Eliade's analyses. Cosmic-structural in character: distinct from sefirot_tree (a kabbalistic emanation diagram) and emanation_hierarchy (an ontological cascade); world_tree_axis is the cosmos's spine rather than the divine's outflow.
The web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit and the lower one to Matter functions as a vertical axis connecting the highest and lowest cosmic levels.