the races, human and animal, are as fully treated here as the writer is able to treat them.
The proofs brought forward in corroboration of the old teachings are scattered widely throughout the old scriptures of ancient civilizations.
The Puranas, the Zendavesta, and the old classics are full of them; but no one has ever gone to the trouble of collecting and collating together those facts.
The reason for this is, that all such events were recorded symbolically; and that the best scholars, the most acute minds, among our Aryanists and Egyptologists, have been too often darkened by one or another preconception; still oftener, by one-sided views of the secret meaning.
Yet even a parable is a spoken symbol: a fiction or a fable, as some think; an allegorical representation, we say, of life-realities, events, and facts.
And, as a moral was ever drawn from a parable, that moral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so an historical, real event was deduced -- by those versed in the hieratic sciences -- from certain emblems and symbols recorded in the ancient archives of the temples.
The religious and esoteric history of every nation was embedded in symbols; it was never expressed in so many words.
All the thoughts and emotions, all the learning and knowledge, revealed and acquired, of the early races, found their pictorial expression in allegory and parable.
Why?
Because the spoken word has a potency unknown to , unsuspected and disbelieved in , by the modern "sages." Because sound and rhythm are closely related to the four Elements of the Ancients; and because such or another vibration in the air is sure to awaken corresponding powers, union with which produces good or bad results, as the case may be.
No student was ever allowed to recite historical, religious, or any real events in so many unmistakable words, lest the powers connected with the event should be once more attracted.
Such events were narrated only during the Initiation, and every student had to record them in corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind and examined later by his master, before they were finally accepted.
Thus was created in time the Chinese Alphabet, as, before that, the hieratic symbols were fixed upon in old Egypt.
In the Chinese language, the alphabet of which may be read in any language,* and which is only a little less ancient than the Egyptian alphabet of Thoth, every word has its corresponding symbol conveying the word needed in a pictorial form.
The language possesses many thousands of such symbol letters, or logograms, each meaning a whole word; for letters proper, or an alphabet, do not exist in the Chinese language any more than they did in the Egyptian till a far later period.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Thus, a Japanese who does not understand one word of Chinese, meeting with a Chinaman who has never heard the language of the former, will communicate in writing with him, and they will understand each other perfectly -- because the writing is symbolical.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted, as Book II., which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult to understand without a preparatory acquaintance with the metaphysical symbols at least.
Nor would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism without giving due honour to one who has rendered it the greatest service in this century, by discovering the chief key to ancient Hebrew symbology, interwoven strongly with metrology, one of the keys to the once universal mystery language.
Mr.
Ralston Skinner, of Cincinnati, the author of "The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery and the Source of Measures" has our thanks.
A mystic and a Kabalist by nature, he has laboured for many years in this direction, and his efforts were certainly crowned with great success.
In his own words: -- "The writer is quite certain that there was an ancient language which modernly and up to this time appears to have been lost, the vestiges of which, however, abundantly exist.
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The author discovered that this (integral ratio in numbers of diameter to circumference of a circle) geometrical ratio was the very ancient, and probably the divine origin of linear measures.
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It appears almost proven that the same system of geometry, numbers, ratio, and measures were known and made use of on the continent of North America, even prior to the knowledge of the same by the descending Semites.
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." "The peculiarity of this language was that it could be contained in another, concealed and not to be perceived, save through the help of special instruction; letters and syllabic signs possessing at the same time the powers or meaning of numbers, of geometrical shapes, pictures, or ideographs and symbols, the designed scope of which would be determinatively helped out by parables in the shape of narratives or parts of narratives; while also it could be set forth separately, independently, and variously, by pictures, in stone work, or in earth construction." "To clear up an ambiguity as to the term language: Primarily the word means the expression of ideas by human speech; but, secondarily, it may mean the expression of ideas by any other instrumentality.
This old language is so composed in the Hebrew text, that by the use of the written characters, which will be the language first defined, a distinctly separated series of ideas may be intentionally communicated, other than those ideas expressed by the reading of the sound signs.
This secondary language sets forth, under a veil, series of ideas, copies in imagination of things sensible, which may be pictured, and of things which may be classed as real without being sensible; as, for instance, the number 9 may be taken as a reality, though it has no sensible existence, so also a revolution of the moon, as separate from the moon itself by which that revolution has been made, may be taken as giving rise to, or causing a real idea, though such a revolution has no substance.
This idea-language may consist of symbols restricted to arbitrary terms and signs, having a very limited range of conceptions, and quite valueless, or it may be a reading of nature in some of her manifestations of a value almost immeasurable, as regards human civilization.
A picture of something natural may give rise to ideas of co-ordina- [[Vol.
1, Page]] 309 MYSTERY LANGUAGE.
tive subject-matter, radiating out in various and even opposing directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and producing natural realities in departments very foreign to the apparent tendency of the reading of the first or starting picture.
Notion may give rise to connected notion, but if it does, then, however apparently incongruous, all resulting ideas must spring from the original picture and be harmonically connected, or related.
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Thus with a pictured idea radical enough, the imagination of the Cosmos itself even in its details of construction might result.
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 presents a system in which pictorial symbols correspond to whole words and ideas, and a 'pictured idea radical enough' can generate 'the imagination of the Cosmos itself even in its details of construction,' mapping micro-symbolic structure onto macro-cosmic structure.
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 old teachings' transmitted through ancient civilizations and the master-student examination process, implying a chain of esoteric transmission across cultures and time.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The entire passage is devoted to explaining how ancient esoteric knowledge was deliberately encoded in symbols, allegories, and parables rather than plain speech, and that only initiates versed in the hieratic sciences could decode the real events concealed within them.
The ritual admission of an individual into esoteric knowledge or a sacred order through a formal rite of passage — testing, ordeal, or ceremony — marking a definite before/after threshold in the initiate's status and access. Distinct from hidden_sayings (the doctrine being concealed, not the rite of admission to it) and esoteric_lineage (the historical chain of transmission across generations, not a single individual's admission).
The passage describes how 'Such events were narrated only during the Initiation, and every student had to record them in corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind and examined later by his master, before they were finally accepted,' detailing a formal rite of admission into esoteric knowledge.
The twenty-two Hebrew letters as the building blocks through which God creates and sustains all existence.
The passage describes the Chinese logograms, Egyptian hieratic symbols, and Hebrew letters as 'possessing at the same time the powers or meaning of numbers, of geometrical shapes, pictures, or ideographs and symbols,' presenting them as the building blocks through which cosmic knowledge is structured and conveyed.
Organized, persisting groups — fraternities, orders, lodges — that maintain esoteric knowledge or practices as an institution distinct from public religion or mainstream society, holding 'the keys' collectively rather than through any one master-disciple pair. Distinct from esoteric_lineage (a genealogical chain of individual transmission, not an institution) and hidden_sayings (the concealment of a teaching's meaning, independent of whether any organized body holds it).
The passage implies organized hieratic institutions (temples with masters, students, and formal examination processes) that collectively maintained and transmitted esoteric knowledge across generations.
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).
The passage explicitly states that 'such or another vibration in the air is sure to awaken corresponding powers' and that sound and rhythm are closely related to the four Elements, framing vibration as a causal cosmic mechanism.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage argues that 'the spoken word has a potency unknown to, unsuspected and disbelieved in, by the modern sages' and that no student was allowed to recite real events in plain words 'lest the powers connected with the event should be once more attracted,' directly asserting the causal-magical force of utterance.