The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page]] 152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
[[This page continued from previous section ]] A FEW EARLY THEOSOPHICAL MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING PLANETS, ROUNDS, AND MAN.
Among the eleven Stanzas omitted* there is one which gives a full description of the formation of the planetary chains one after another, after the first Cosmic and Atomic differentiation had commenced in the primitive Acosmism.
It is idle to speak of "laws arising when Deity prepares to create" for ( a ) laws or rather L AW is eternal and uncreated; and ( b ) that Deity is Law, and vice versa.
Moreover, the one eternal L AW unfolds everything in the (to be) manifested Nature on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the countless circular chains of worlds, composed of seven globes, graduated on the four lower planes of the world of formation (the three others belonging to the Archetypal Universe).
Out of these seven only one , the lowest and the most material of those globes , is within our plane or means of perception, the six others lying outside of it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye.
Every such chain of worlds is the progeny and creation of another, lower , and dead chain -- its reincarnation , so to say.
To make it clearer: we are told of the planets -- of which seven only were held as sacred, as being ruled by the highest regents or gods, and not at all because the ancients knew nothing of the others** -- that each of these, whether known or unknown, is a septenary, as is the chain to which the Earth belongs (see "Esoteric [[Footnote(s)]] to diagram * See the note which follows the Commentary on the preceding page, and also the summary of the Stanzas in the Proem, page 22.
** Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 153 DESCENDING AND RE-ASCENDING STATES.
Buddhism").
For instance, all such planets as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc., etc., or our Earth, are as visible to us as our globe, probably, is to the inhabitants of the other planets, if any, because they are all on the same plane; while the superior fellow-globes of these planets are on other planes quite outside that of our terrestrial senses.
As their relative position is given further on, and also in the diagram appended to the Comments on Verse 7 of Stanza VI., a few words of explanation is all that is needed at present.
These invisible companions correspond curiously to that which we call "the principles in Man." The seven are on three material planes and one spiritual plane, answering to the three Upadhis (material bases) and one spiritual vehicle ( Vahan ) of our seven principles in the human division.
If, for the sake of a clearer mental conception, we imagine the human principles to be arranged as in the following scheme, we shall obtain the annexed diagram of correspondences: -- D IAGRAM I .
[[Footnote(s) to diagram]] ------------------------------------------------- *As we are proceeding here from Universals to Particulars, instead of using the inductive or Aristotelean method, the numbers are reversed.
Spirit is enumerated the first instead of seventh, as is usually done, but, in truth, ought not to be done.
† Or as usually named after the manner of Esoteric Buddhism and others: 1, Atma; 2, Buddhi (or Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas (Human Soul); 4, Kama Rupa (Vehicle of Desires and Passions); 5, Linga Sarira; 6, Prana; 7, Sthula Sarira.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 154 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The dark horizontal lines of the lower planes are the Upadhis in one case, and the planes in the case of the planetary chain.
Of course, as regards the human principles, the diagram does not place them quite in order, yet it shows the correspondence and analogy to which attention is now drawn.
As the reader will see, it is a case of descent into matter, the adjustment -- in both the mystic and the physical senses -- of the two, and their interblending for the great coming "struggle of life" that awaits both the entities.
"Entity" may be thought a strange term to use in the case of a globe; but the ancient philosophers, who saw in the earth a huge "animal," were wiser in their generation than our modern geologists are in theirs; and Pliny, who called the Earth our kind nurse and mother, the only element which is not inimical to man, spoke more truly than Watts, who fancied that he saw in her the footstool of God.
For Earth is only the footstool of man in his ascension to higher regions; the vestibule -- ".
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to glorious mansions, Through which a moving crowd for ever press." But this only shows how admirably the occult philosophy fits everything in Nature, and how much more logical are its tenets than the lifeless hypothetical speculations of physical science.
Having learned thus much, the mystic will be better prepared to understand the occult teaching, though every formal student of modern science may, and probably will, regard it as preposterous nonsense.
The student of occultism, however, holds that the theory at present under discussion is far more philosophical and probable than any other.
It is more logical, at any rate, than the theory recently advanced which made of the moon the projection of a portion of our Earth extruded when the latter was but a globe in fusion, a molten plastic mass.* It is said that the planetary chains having their "Days" and their [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Says the author of "Modern Science and Modern Thought," Mr.
Samuel Laing: "The astronomical conclusions are theories based on data so uncertain, that while in some cases they give results incredibly short, like that of 15 millions of years for the whole past process of formation of the solar system, in others they give results almost incredibly long, as in that which supposes the moon to have been thrown off when the Earth was rotating in three hours , while the utmost actual retardation obtained from observation would require 600 millions of years to make it rotate in twenty-three hours instead of twenty-four" (p.
48).
And if physicists persist, why should the chronology of the Hindus be laughed at as exaggerated?
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 155 EXCHANGE OF LIFE-PRINCIPLES.
"Nights" -- i.e.
, periods of activity or life, and of inertia or death -- and behave in heaven as do men on Earth: they generate their likes, get old, and become personally extinct, their spiritual principles only living in their progeny as a survival of themselves.
Without attempting the very difficult task of giving out the whole process in all its cosmic details, enough may be said to give an approximate idea of it.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
Each planetary chain is described as the 'reincarnation' of a previous dead chain, implying cyclical renewal and recurrence of cosmic entities after periods of extinction.
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 entire passage is structured around the explicit analogy between the seven globes of a planetary chain and the seven principles in Man, with a diagram illustrating the structural isomorphism between cosmic and human levels.
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 formation of planetary chains 'one after another, after the first Cosmic and Atomic differentiation had commenced in the primitive Acosmism,' presenting a temporally-narrative account of cosmic origin.
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
The statement that 'Deity is Law, and vice versa' and that the one eternal Law 'unfolds everything in the manifested Nature' presents the divine as pervading and constitutive of all creation rather than remaining solely transcendent.
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 describes the one eternal Law unfolding on a sevenfold principle into graduated globes and planes, with a clear cascade from the spiritual to the most material, and each new chain as the reincarnation of a prior dead one.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage references 'Stanzas omitted' and 'Secret Books' containing knowledge beyond public astronomy, framing the teaching as esoteric material reserved for the initiated.
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 passage describes 'countless circular chains of worlds' and notes that 'many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works,' presenting a boundless cosmos of innumerable worlds.
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 explicitly describes six globes of each planetary chain as 'outside of it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye,' constituting a non-physical dimension interpenetrating the visible world.
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 passage explicitly describes 'a case of descent into matter, the adjustment — in both the mystic and the physical senses — of the two, and their interblending,' naming the directional process of spirit descending through successive planes to full materialization.
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.
The passage makes the human being the privileged mirror of the cosmos: the seven principles in Man directly correspond to the seven globes of the Earth's planetary chain, with the three Upadhis and one Vahan mapping onto three material planes and one spiritual plane.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The number seven is the organizing structural principle throughout — seven globes, seven principles, sevenfold unfolding — with the footnote explaining why the numbering is reversed from the usual order, treating numbers as revelatory of cosmic architecture.
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.
Planetary chains are said to have 'Days' and 'Nights' — periods of activity and inertia, life and death — constituting a cosmic pendulum motion between poles.