He is sexless , and , like the animal and vegetable he develops monstrous bodies correspondential with his coarser surroundings.
" II.
Round.
He ( Man ) is still gigantic and ethereal but growing firmer and more condensed in body , a more physical man.
Yet still less intelligent than spiritual (1), for mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than is the physical frame .
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" III.
Round.
He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body , at first the form of a giant-ape , and now more intelligent , or rather cunning , than spiritual.
For , on the downward arc , he has now reached a point where his primordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent mentality (2).
In the last half of the Third Round his gigantic stature decreases , and his body improves in texture , and he becomes a more rational being , though still more an ape than a [[Vol.
1, Page]] 189 A MASTER'S LETTER.
Deva .
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( All this is almost exactly repeated in the third Root-Race of the Fourth Round.
) " IV.
Round.
Intellect has an enormous development in this Round.
The ( hitherto ) dumb races acquire our ( present ) human speech on this globe , on which , from the Fourth Race , language is perfected and knowledge increases.
At this half-way point of the Fourth Round ( as of the Fourth Root , or Atlantean , race ) humanity passes the axial point of the minor Manvantara cycle .
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the world teeming with the results of intellectual activity and spiritual decrease .
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." This is from the authentic letter; what follows are the later remarks and additional explanations traced by the same hand in the form of footnotes.
(1.) " .
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The original letter contained general teaching -- a ' bird ' s eye view ' -- and particularized nothing .
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To speak of 'physical man' while limiting the statement to the early Rounds would be drifting back to the miraculous and instantaneous ' coats of skin.
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The first ' Nature ,' the first ' body ,' the first ' mind ' on the first plane of perception , on the first Globe in the first Round , is what was meant.
For Karma and evolution have -- ' .
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centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different Natures* marvellously mixed .
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.' (2.) " Restore: he has now reached the point (by analogy , and as the Third Root Race in the Fourth Round ) where his (" the angel " -man ' s ) primordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent human mentality , and you have the true version on your thumb-nail .
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." These are the words of the Teacher -- text, words and sentences in brackets, and explanatory footnotes.
It stands to reason that there must be an enormous difference in such terms as "objectivity" and "subjectivity," "materiality" and "spirituality," when the same terms are applied to different planes of being and perception.
All this must be taken in its relative sense.
And therefore there is little to be wondered at, if, left to his own speculations, an author, however eager to learn, yet quite inexperienced in these abstruse teachings, has fallen [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The Natures of the seven hierarchies or classes of Pitris and Dhyan Chohans which compose our nature and Bodies are here meant.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 190 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
into an error.
Neither was the difference between the "Rounds" and the "Races" sufficiently defined in the letters received, nor was there anything of the kind required before, as the ordinary Eastern disciple would have found out the difference in a moment.
Moreover, to quote from a letter of the Master's (188-), "the teachings were imparted under protest.
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They were, so to say, smuggled goods .
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and when I remained face to face with only one correspondent, the other, Mr.
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., had so far tossed all the cards into confusion, that little remained to be said without trespassing upon law." Theosophists, "whom it may concern," will understand what is meant.
The outcome of all this is that nothing had ever been said in the "letters" to warrant the assurance that the Occult doctrine has ever taught, or any Adept believed in, the preposterous modern theory of the descent of man from a common ancestor with the ape -- an anthropoid of the actual animal kind, unless metaphorically.
To this day the world is more full of "ape-like men" than the woods are of "men-like apes." The ape is sacred in India because its origin is well known to the Initiates, though concealed under a thick veil of allegory.
Hanuman is the son of Pavana (Vayu, "the god of the wind") by Anjana, a monster called Kesari, though his genealogy varies.
The reader who bears this in mind will find in Book II.
passim , the whole explanation of this ingenious allegory.
The "Men" of the Third Race (who separated) were "Gods" by their spirituality and purity, though senseless, and as yet destitute of mind, as men.
These "Men" of the Third Race -- the ancestors of the Atlanteans -- were just such ape-like, intellectually senseless giants as were those beings, who, during the Third Round, represented Humanity.
Morally irresponsible, it was these third Race "men" who, through promiscuous connection with animal species lower than themselves, created that missing link which became ages later (in the tertiary period only) the remote ancestor of the real ape as we find it now in the pithecoid family.* [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * And if this is found clashing with that other statement which shows the animal later than man, then the reader is asked to bear in mind that the placental mammal only is meant.
In those days there were animals of which zoology does not even dream in our own; and the modes of reproduction were not identical with the notions which modern physiology has upon the subject.
It is not altogether convenient to touch upon such questions in public, but there is no contradiction or impossibility in this whatever.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 191 THE PRELIMINARY CREATION OF MAN.
Thus the earlier teachings, however unsatisfactory, vague and fragmentary, did not teach the evolution of "man" from the "ape." Nor does the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" assert it anywhere in his work in so many words; but, owing to his inclination towards modern science, he uses language which might perhaps justify such an inference.
The man who preceded the Fourth, the Atlantean race, however much he may have looked physically like a "gigantic ape" -- "the counterfeit of man who hath not the life of a man" -- was still a thinking and already a speaking man.
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 states that bodies are 'correspondential with his coarser surroundings' and that the same terms map across different planes, reflecting the Hermetic axiom of structural reflection at every scale.
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 origin and development of humanity through cosmic Rounds, describing how beings first came into being and evolved through successive stages from ethereal to material form.
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 references the 'seven hierarchies or classes of Pitris and Dhyan Chohans which compose our nature and Bodies,' indicating a cascading structure of divine principles flowing into human composition.
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).
The passage references 'the authentic letter' from 'the Teacher' (Master), distinguishes between the original teaching and later explanations, and implies a chain of transmission from Master to disciple to author.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
The teachings are described as 'smuggled goods' imparted 'under protest' with the warning that little remains to be said 'without trespassing upon law.'
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage describes teachings as 'smuggled goods' imparted 'under protest,' uses allegory (Hanuman), and presents a 'bird's eye view' that requires particularization for proper understanding.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage describes beings descending from ethereal to 'perfectly concrete or compacted body' across Rounds, a discrete process of spirit taking on increasingly bounded material form.
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 entire passage is a staged account of spirit descending into matter through successive Rounds — from ethereal to concrete body, from spirituality to mentality — which is the core doctrine of involution.
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 human being is described as composed of 'Natures' from the seven hierarchies of Pitris and Dhyan Chohans, making the individual a microcosmic reflection of the cosmic structure.
Sacred knowledge transmitted as living speech rather than fixed writing — scripture carried in memory, song, and telling, renewed in each generation; the unwritten canon of a tradition.
The 'authentic letter' from the Master and the reference to an 'ordinary Eastern disciple' who would understand suggest a living transmission of knowledge rather than a fixed written canon.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
The passage uses the paradox of 'ape-like men' versus 'men-like apes' and the counterintuitive claim that the ape is a later product of 'ape-like men' to destabilize modern evolutionary assumptions.
The doctrine that reality has two registers — an Absolute truth as the divine or ultimate mind knows it, and a Relative truth as finite human reason perceives and must act on — with both held as legitimate on their own plane rather than the second being simply an error to correct. Distinct from apophatic_theology (a claim about how the divine may be described, by negation) and unity_of_being (a claim that being is ultimately one) in being a claim about two coexisting registers of truth-claim itself.
The passage explicitly states that terms like 'objectivity,' 'subjectivity,' 'materiality,' and 'spirituality' have enormous differences when applied to different planes of being and perception, and that 'all this must be taken in its relative sense.'