Page 26 (part 2)

Moreover, the modern symbologists and Orientalists -- from first to last -- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The Natural Genesis , by Gerald Massey, Vol. 1, p. 340. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 406 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. being ignorant of the real mysteries revealed by occultism, can necessarily see but this last stage. If told that this mode of procreation, which the whole world of being has now in common on this earth, is but a passing phase, a physical means of furnishing the conditions to, and producing the phenomena of life which will alter with this, and disappear with the next Root-Race -- they would laugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But the most learned Occultists assert this because they know it. The universe of living beings, of all those which procreate their species, is the living witness to the various modes of procreation in the evolution of animal and human species and races; and the naturalist ought to sense this truth intuitionally, even though he is yet unable to demonstrate it. And how could he, indeed, with the present modes of thought! The landmarks of the archaic history of the past are few and scarce, and those that men of science come across are mistaken for finger-posts of our little era. Even so-called "universal" (?) history embraces but a tiny field in the almost boundless space of the unexplored regions of our latest, fifth Root-Race. Hence, every fresh sign-post, every new glyph of the hoary Past that is discovered, is added to the old stock of information, to be interpreted on the same lines of pre-existing conceptions, and without any reference to the special cycle of thought which that particular glyph may belong to. How can Truth ever come to light if this method is never changed! Thus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly. The tree was reversed , and its roots were generated in Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being. Its trunk grew and developed, crossing the planes of Pleroma, it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Asvattha, tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the Bhagavatgita to grow with its roots above and its branches below (ch. xv.). The roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the LOGOS; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite oneself with Krishna , who, says Arjuna ( XI .), is "greater than Brahman, and First Cause . . . the indestructible, that which is, that which is not, and what is beyond them." Its boughs are Hiranyagharba (Brahma or Brahman in his highest manifestations, say Sridhara and Madhusudana), the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas. The Vedas are its leaves. He only who goes beyond the roots shall never return, i.e. , shall reincarnate no more during this "age" of Brahma. It is only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud of the garden of Eden, of our Adamic race, that this Tree got soiled by the contact and lost its pristine purity; and that the Serpent of [[Vol. 1, Page]] 407 THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGONS. Eternity -- the heaven-born L OGOS -- was finally degraded. In days of old -- of the divine Dynasties on Earth -- the now dreaded Reptile was regarded as the first beam of light that radiated from the abyss of divine Mystery. Various were the forms which it was made to assume, and numerous the natural symbols adapted to it, as it crossed aeons of Time: as from Infinite Time itself -- Kala -- it fell into the space and time evolved out of human speculation. These forms were Cosmic and astronomical, theistic and pantheistic, abstract and concrete. They became in turn the Polar Dragon and the Southern Cross, the Alpha Draconis of the Pyramid, and the Hindu-Buddhist Dragon, which ever threatens, yet never swallows the Sun during its eclipses. Till then, the Tree remained ever green, for it was sprinkled by the waters of life; the great Dragon, ever divine, so long as it was kept within the precincts of the sidereal fields. But the tree grew and its lower boughs touched at last the infernal regions -- our Earth. Then the great serpent Nidhogg -- he who devours the corpses of the evil-doers in the "Hall of Misery" (human life), so soon as they are plunged into "Hwergelmir," the roaring cauldron (of human passions) -- gnawed the World-tree. The worms of materiality covered the once healthy and mighty roots, and are now ascending higher and higher along the trunk; while the Midgard-snake coiled at the bottom of the Seas, encircles the Earth, and, through its venomous breath, makes her powerless to defend herself. They are all seven-headed, the dragons and serpents of antiquity -- "one head for each race, and every head with seven hairs on it," as the allegory has it. Aye, from Ananta, the Serpent of Eternity which carries Vishnu through the Manvantara, from the original primordial Sesha, whose seven heads become "one thousand heads" in the Puranic fancy, down to the seven-headed Akkadian Serpent. This typifies the Seven principles throughout nature and man; the highest or middle head being the seventh. It is not of the Mosaic, Jewish Sabbath that Philo speaks in his Creation of the World , when saying that the world was completed "according to the perfect nature of number 6." For, " when that reason ( nous ) which is holy in accordance with the number seven , has entered the soul (rather the living body), the number six is thus arrested, and all the mortal things which that number makes." And again: "Number 7 is the festival day of all the earth, the birthday of the world. I know not whether any one would be able to celebrate the number 7 in adequate terms." . . . (Par. pp. 30 and 419). The author of The Natural Genesis thinks that "the Septenary of Stars seen in the great bear (the Septarshis ) and seven-headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic seven of time above. The goddess of the seven stars," he adds -- [[Vol. 1, Page]] 408 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. "Was the mother of time, as Kep; whence Kepti and Sebti for the two times and number seven. So this is the star of the Seven by name. Sevekt (Kronos), the Son of the goddess, has the name of the seven or seventh.