because, firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, "the Son of the Son," contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (The Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom.
"He who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of Maya." Kwan-Shai-Yin is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshwara , and as such he is an androgynous deity, like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi* of antiquity.
It is only by some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized and represented with female attributes,** when, under his female aspect, he becomes Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy, called the "Divine Voice."*** The latter is the patron deity of Thibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a number of monasteries.**** (See Part II.
Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-yin.) [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Hence all the higher gods of antiquity are all "Sons of the Mother" before they become those of the "Father." The Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, Son of Kronos-Saturn, "Infinite Time" (or Kala), in their origin were represented as male-female.
Zeus is said to be the "beautiful Virgin," and Venus is made bearded.
Apollo is originally bisexual, so is Brahma-Vach in Manu and the Puranas.
Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes.
Finally St.
John's vision in Revelation, that of the Logos, who is now connected with Jesus -- is hermaphrodite, for he is described as having female breasts.
So is the Tetragrammaton = Jehovah.
But there are two Avalokiteshwaras in Esotericism; the first and the second Logos.
** No religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days of politics and Science.
In Southern India the writer has seen a converted native making pujah with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman's clothes and with a ring in his nose.
When asking the meaning of the masquerade we were answered that it was Jesu-Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the permission of the Padri, as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two statues or "idols" as they, very properly, were called by a witness -- another but a non-converted Hindu.
Blasphemous this will appear to a dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm of logic to the converted Hindu.
The esoteric Christos in the gnosis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric theology he is male and female.
*** The Gnostic Sophia, "Wisdom" who is "the Mother" of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems.
The "father" is a far later invention.
The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere -- the mother of the seven planetary powers.
**** See "Chinese Buddhism," by the Rev.
J.
C.
Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 73 THE DRAGON AND THE LOGOI.
( b ) "The "Dragon of Wisdom" is the One, the "Eka" (Sanskrit) or Saka.
It is curious that Jehovah's name in Hebrew should also be One, Echod.
"His name is Echod": say the Rabbins.
The philologists ought to decide which of the two is derived from the other -- linguistically and symbolically: surely, not the Sanskrit?
The "One" and the Dragon are expressions used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi.
Jehovah -- esoterically (as Elohim) -- is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve, and the "Dragon" is an old glyph for "Astral Light" (Primordial Principle), "which is the Wisdom of Chaos." Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally), traced both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, hence becoming Matter or Evil.
It was left with the early and ignorant Christian fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of this emblem (the Dragon) into the absurd superstition called the "Devil." They took it from the later Zoroastrians, who saw devils or the Evil in the Hindu Devas , and the word Evil thus became by a double transmutation D'Evil in every tongue (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo, Teufel).
But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical discrimination in their symbols.
The primitive symbol of the serpent symbolised divine Wisdom and Perfection, and had always stood for psychical Regeneration and Immortality.
Hence -- Hermes, calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated in the wisdom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis; the Gnostic's Serpent with the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the seven hierarchies of the Septenary or Planetary Creators.
Hence, also, the Hindu serpent Sesha or Ananta, "the Infinite," a name of Vishnu, whose first Vahan or vehicle on the primordial waters is this serpent.* Yet they all made a difference between the good and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Like the logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, the "Serpents" have to be distinguished one from the other.
Sesha or Ananta, "the couch of Vishnu," is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this germ, the manifested Universe; whereas, the gnostic Ophis contained the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the One, Three and Seven-syllabled Oeaohoo of the Archaic doctrine; i.e.
, the One Unmanifested Logos, the Second manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the rays of the latter on the material plane.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the Kabalists) -- between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region of the Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of matter.* Jesus accepted the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching: "Be ye wise as serpents," he says.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage discusses how 'some sects in China' anthropomorphized Kwan-Shai-Yin with female attributes and how the Logos in Revelation is 'described as having female breasts,' acknowledging embodied divine imagery as a degraded or exoteric representation.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The passage directly states that 'the Dragon is an old glyph for Astral Light (Primordial Principle), which is the Wisdom of Chaos,' identifying it as the transmitting medium of the occult.
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.
The passage draws explicit cross-traditional correspondences (Kwan-Shai-Yin = Avalokiteshwara, Dragon = Astral Light, Eka = Echod) demonstrating that the same divine principle appears under different names across cultures.
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 passage narrates the cosmic origin: 'pure Light condensing gradually into form, hence becoming Matter or Evil,' presenting a temporally-narrative account of how the manifested universe came to be from the unmanifested.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The passage references the 'Unmanifested Logos' and the 'veil of Maya' that conceals the true nature of Oeaohoo, implying a supreme reality hidden beyond ordinary perception.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
The passage repeatedly uses light as the fundamental divine quality — 'bathes in the light of Oeaohoo,' 'pure Light condensing gradually into form,' and the Astral Light as Primordial Principle — presenting illumination as the essential nature of the divine.
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 explicitly traces a cascade from the One through the First Logos (Oeaohoo) containing the Seven Creative Hosts, with the footnote describing 'the One Unmanifested Logos, the Second manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the rays of the latter on the material plane.'
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The passage states that 'Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally), traced both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, hence becoming Matter or Evil,' presenting evil as a degradation of light rather than an independent principle.
The passage describes the directional process of spirit descending into matter ('Light condensing gradually into form') and implies its complementary return ('bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of Maya'), naming the staged cosmic process of descent paired with ascent.
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).
The passage is centrally devoted to demonstrating that the masculine-feminine generative principle operates at every level of the divine — Kwan-Shai-Yin as androgynous, Zeus as 'beautiful Virgin,' Apollo as bisexual, the Logos in Revelation having female breasts, and the assertion that 'all the higher gods of antiquity are all Sons of the Mother before they become those of the Father.'
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage repeatedly contrasts esoteric and exoteric meanings — 'Jehovah esoterically (as Elohim) is also the Serpent,' 'the esoteric Christos in the gnosis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric theology he is male and female' — demonstrating that outer meaning conceals inner liberating truth.
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 passage distinguishes 'the region of the Spiritual' from 'the plane of matter' and describes the Astral Light as a primordial principle operating in a non-physical dimension.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The entire passage is organized around the Logos in its various manifestations across traditions — Greek Logos, Oeaohoo as first Logos, the Tetragrammaton, the Gnostic Logos, and the Logos connected with Jesus — as the mediating ordering principle between the transcendent and the manifested.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage identifies 'the Dragon of Wisdom' as 'the One, the Eka (Sanskrit) or Saka' and equates it with Jehovah's name Echod (One), presenting the absolutely simple undivided first principle.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The passage is saturated with numerological structure: the Seven Creative Hosts, the triangle concreted into the Quaternary, the One-Three-Seven-syllabled Oeaohoo, the seven vowels over the Gnostic Serpent, and the Ogdoad's eight sons — all indicating numbers as the underlying structure of divine reality.
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).
The passage presents Light and Matter, good and bad serpent, and male and female as two poles of the same principle, with the distinction being one of degree or plane rather than fundamental opposition — 'traced both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, hence becoming Matter or Evil.'
The ten attributes or emanations through which the Ein Sof (Infinite) reveals itself and creates the universe in Kabbalistic theology.
The passage explicitly names 'The Seven Creative Hosts (The Sephiroth)' as contained within the first manifestation and discusses the Tetragrammaton as the Quaternary concreted from the triangle.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage asserts 'the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally)' as the single source from which both good and evil are traced, implying all existence is ultimately one reality.