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So has Sefekh Abu who builds the house on high, as Wisdom (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars. . . The primary Kronotypes were seven, and thus the beginning of time in heaven is based on the number and the name of seven, on account of the starry demonstrators. The seven stars as they turned round annually kept pointing, as it were, with the forefinger of the right hand, and describing a circle in the upper and lower heaven.* The number seven naturally suggested a measure by seven, that led to what may be termed Sevening, and to the marking and mapping out of the circle in seven corresponding divisions which were assigned to the seven great constellations; and thus was formed the celestial heptanomis of Egypt in the heavens. . . . When the stellar heptanomis was broken up and divided into four quarters, it was multiplied by four, and the twenty-eight signs took the place of the primary seven constellations, the lunar zodiac of twenty-eight days being the registered result.** . . . In the Chinese arrangement the four sevens are given to four genii that preside over the four cardinal points. . . ." (In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism the genii are represented by four Dragons -- the "Maharajahs" of the Stanzas.) "The seven Northern constellations make up the Black Warrior; the seven Eastern (Chinese autumn) constitute the White Tiger; the seven Southern are the Vermilion Bird; and the seven Western (called Vernal) are the Azure Dragon. Each of these four Spirits presides over its heptanomis during one lunar week. The genetive of the first heptanomis (Typhon of the Seven Stars) now took a lunar character; . . . in this phase we find the goddess Sefekh, whose name signifies number 7, is the feminine word, or logos in place of the mother of Time, who was the earlier Word , as goddess of the Seven Stars" ("Typology of Time," Vol. II. p. 313, Nat. Gen. ) . The author shows that it was the goddess of the Great Bear and mother of Time who was in Egypt from the earliest times the " Living Word ," and that "Sevekh-Kronus, whose type was the Crocodile-Dragon, the pre-planetary form of Saturn, was called her son and consort; he was her Word-Logos" (p. 321, Vol. I.). The above is quite plain, but it was not the knowledge of astronomy only that led the ancients to the process of Sevening. The primal cause goes far deeper and will be explained in its place. The above quotations are no digressions. They are brought forward as showing ( a ) the reason why a full Initiate was called a "Dragon," a "Snake" a "Naga"; and ( b ) that our septenary division was used by the priests of the earliest dynasties in Egypt, for the same reason and on the same basis as by us. This needs further elucidation, however. As already stated, that which Mr. G. Massey calls the four genii of the four cardinal points; and the Chinese, the Black Warrior, White Tiger, Ver- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven are thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the human higher and lower nature. ** Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four-fold division. It is the root of archaic classification. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 409 DRAGON AND CROCODILE. milion Bird, and Azure Dragon, is called in the Secret Books, -- the "Four Hidden Dragons of Wisdom" and the "Celestial Nagas." Now, as shown, the seven-headed or septenary D RAGON- L OGOS had been in course of time split up, so to speak, into four heptanomic parts or twenty-eight portions. Each lunar week has a distinct occult character in the lunar month; each day of the twenty-eight has its special characteristics; as each of the twelve constellations, whether separately or in combination with other signs, has an occult influence either for good or for evil. This represents the sum of knowledge that men can acquire on this earth; yet few are those who acquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who get to the root of knowledge symbolized by the great Root Dragon, the spiritual LOGOS of these visible signs. But those who do, receive the name of "Dragons," and they are the "Arhats of the Four Truths of the 28 Faculties," or attributes, and have always been so called. The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists asserted that to become real Chaldees or Magi, one had to master the science or knowledge of the periods of the Seven Rectors of the world, in whom is all wisdom. In "Proclus in Timaeus ," b. 1, Jamblichus is credited with another version, which does not however, alter, the meaning. He says that "the Assyrians have not only preserved the records of seven and twenty myriads of years, as Hipparchus says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the Seven Rulers of the World." The legends of every nation and tribe, whether civilized or savage, point to the once universal belief in the great wisdom and cunning of the Serpents. They are "charmers." They hypnotise the bird with their eye, and man himself, very often, does not feel above their fascinating influence; therefore the symbol is a most fitting one. The crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis. According to Eusebius, the Egyptians represented the sun in a ship as its pilot, this ship being carried along by a crocodile "to show the motion of the Sun in the moyst (Space)", ( Prepar. Evang. , 1, 3, c. 3). The crocodile was moreover, the symbol of Egypt herself -- the lower , as being the more swampy of the two countries. The Alchemists claim another interpretation. They say that the symbol of the sun in the ship on the Ether of Space meant that the hermetic matter is the principle, or basis, of gold, or again the philosophical sun; the water, within which the crocodile is swimming, is that water or matter made liquid; the ship herself, finally, representing the vessel of nature, in which the sun, or the sulphuric, igneous principle, acts as a pilot: because it is the sun [[Vol. 1, Page]] 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. which conducts the work by his action upon the moist or mercury. The above is only for the Alchemists. The Serpent became the type and symbol of evil, and of the Devil, only during the middle ages.