The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page]] 411 THE MYSTERY OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS.
[[This page continued from previous section ]] § XI.
DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS.
T HIS symbolical sentence, in its many-sided forms, is certainly most dangerous and iconoclastic in the face of all the dualistic later religions -- or rather theologies -- and especially so in the light of Christianity.
Yet it is neither just nor correct to say that it is Christianity which has conceived and brought forth Satan.
As an "adversary," the opposing Power required by the equilibrium and harmony of things in Nature -- like Shadow to throw off still brighter the Light, like Night to bring into greater relief the Day, and like cold to make one appreciate the more the comfort of heat -- S ATAN has ever existed.
Homogeneity is one and indivisible.
But if the homogeneous One and Absolute is no mere figure of speech, and if heterogeneity in its dualistic aspect, is its offspring -- its bifurcous shadow or reflection -- then even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of [[Vol.
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both good and evil.
If "God" is Absolute, Infinite, and the Universal Root of all and everything in Nature and its universe, whence comes Evil or D'Evil if not from the same "Golden Womb" of the absolute?
Thus we are forced either to accept the emanation of good and evil, of Agathodaemon and Kakodaemon as offshoots from the same trunk of the Tree of Being, or to resign ourselves to the absurdity of believing in two eternal Absolutes!
Having to trace the origin of the idea to the very beginnings of human mind, it is but just, meanwhile, to give his due even to the proverbial devil.
Antiquity knew of no isolated, thoroughly and absolutely bad "god of evil." Pagan thought represented good and evil as twin brothers, born from the same mother -- Nature; so soon as that thought ceased to be Archaic, Wisdom too became Philosophy.
In the beginning the symbols of good and evil were mere abstractions, Light and Darkness; then their types became chosen among the most natural and ever-recurrent periodical Cosmic phenomena -- the Day and the Night, or the Sun and Moon.
Then the Hosts of the Solar and Lunar deities were made to represent them, and the Dragon of Darkness was contrasted with the Dragon of Light (See Stanzas V .
, VII.
of Book I.) The Host of Satan is a Son of God, no less than the Host of the B'ni Alhim, these children of God coming to "present themselves before the Lord," their father (see Job ii.
) .
"The Sons of God" become the "Fallen Angels" only after perceiving that the daughters of men were fair , ( Genesis vi.
) In the Indian philosophy, the Suras are among the earliest and the brightest gods, and become Asuras only when dethroned by Brahminical fancy.
Satan never assumed an anthropomorphic, individualized shape, until the creation by man, of a "one living personal god," had been accomplished; and then merely as a matter of prime necessity.
A screen was needed; a scape-goat to explain the cruelty, blunders, and but too-evident injustice, perpetrated by him for whom absolute perfection, mercy, and goodness were claimed.
This was the first Karmic effect of abandoning a philosophical and logical Pantheism, to build, as a prop for lazy man, "a merciful father in Heaven," whose daily and hourly actions as Natura naturans , the "comely mother but stone cold," belie the assumption.
This led to the primal twins, Osiris-Typhon, Ormazd-Ahriman, and finally Cain-Abel and the tutti-quanti of contraries.
Having commenced by being synonymous with Nature, "God," the Creator, ended by being made its author.
Pascal settles the difficulty very cunningly: "Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God: and defects, in order to show that she is only his image," he says.
The further back one recedes into the darkness of the prehistoric [[Vol.
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ages, the more philosophical does the prototypic figure of the later Satan appear.
The first "Adversary" in individual human form that one meets with in old Puranic literature is one of her greatest Rishis and Yogis -- Narada, surnamed the "Strife-maker." And he is a Brahmaputra, a son of Brahma, the male.
But of him later on.
Who the great "Deceiver" really is, one can ascertain by searching for him with open eyes and an unprejudiced mind, in every old cosmogony and Scripture.
It is the anthropomorphised Demiurge , the Creator of Heaven and Earth, when separated from the collective Hosts of his fellow-Creators, whom, so to speak, he represents and synthesizes.
It is now the God of theologies.
"The thought is father to the wish." Once upon a time, a philosophical symbol left to perverse human fancy; afterwards fashioned into a fiendish, deceiving, cunning, and jealous God.
Dragons and other fallen angels being described in other parts of this work, a few words upon the much-slandered Satan will be sufficient.
That which the student will do well to remember is that, with every people except the Christian nations, the Devil is to this day no worse an entity than the opposite aspect in the dual nature of the so-called Creator.
This is only natural.
One cannot claim God as the synthesis of the whole Universe, as Omnipresent and Omniscient and Infinite, and then divorce him from evil.
As there is far more evil than good in the world, it follows on logical grounds that either God must include evil, or stand as the direct cause of it, or else surrender his claims to absoluteness.
The ancients understood this so well that their philosophers -- now followed by the Kabalists -- defined evil as the lining of God or Good: Demon est Deus inversus , being a very old adage.
Indeed, evil is but an antagonizing blind force in nature; it is reaction , opposition , and contrast , -- evil for some, good for others.
There is no malum in se: only the shadow of light, without which light could have no existence, even in our perceptions.
If evil disappeared, good would disappear along with it from Earth.
The "Old Dragon" was pure spirit before he became matter, passive before he became active.
In the Syro-Chaldean magic both Ophis and Ophiomorphos are joined in the Zodiac, at the sign of the Androgyne Virgo-Scorpio.
Before its fall on earth the "Serpent" was Ophis-Christos , and after its fall it became Ophiomorphos- C HRESTOS.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage explicitly critiques the 'creation by man, of a one living personal god' and the 'anthropomorphised Demiurge' as a corruption of philosophical Pantheism into a 'merciful father in Heaven.'
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The passage implies the Absolute transcends all categories by arguing that if God is truly Absolute and Infinite, he must contain all opposites, making positive moral attributions like 'good' insufficient to describe the divine.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
The passage explicitly identifies the 'anthropomorphised Demiurge, the Creator of Heaven and Earth' as the figure behind the personal God of theologies, distinct from the collective Hosts of fellow-Creators.
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 passage argues that if God is 'Omnipresent and Omniscient and Infinite' he must include evil, implying the divine pervades all of creation including its negative aspects.
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 good and evil as 'offshoots from the same trunk of the Tree of Being' and emanating from the 'Golden Womb' of the Absolute, presenting a cascade from a single source.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The passage states 'There is no malum in se: only the shadow of light, without which light could have no existence' and defines evil as 'reaction, opposition, and contrast' rather than an independent positive force.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'homogeneous One and Absolute' described as 'one and indivisible' from which heterogeneity is 'its offspring' directly expresses the monad as the undivided first principle.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
The central thesis — that the Absolute must contain evil, that the Devil is God inverted, that good and evil are twin brothers from the same mother — uses deliberate contradiction to destabilise theological assumptions.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The entire passage is structured around the identity-in-opposition of good and evil: 'Demon est Deus inversus,' evil as 'the lining of God,' the shadow that makes light exist, and the claim that 'if evil disappeared, good would disappear along with it' — all expressing that apparent opposites are aspects of one reality.
Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance.
The passage critiques the claim of absolute perfection, mercy, and goodness for a personal God whose 'daily and hourly actions as Natura naturans, the comely mother but stone cold, belie the assumption.'
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The central argument is that the Absolute must contain both good and evil, that 'the divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and evil,' and that one cannot claim God as synthesis of the whole Universe and divorce him from evil.
The 1 Enoch narrative in which a class of originally-good angelic beings (the Watchers) descends, mates with women, and teaches forbidden arts — the substrate that Gnostic archons inherits and inverts: archons are born malevolent, the Watchers fall through transgression.
The passage directly references the Genesis vi narrative of the 'Sons of God' becoming 'Fallen Angels' after perceiving the daughters of men, and identifies the Host of Satan as a Son of God no less than the B'ni Alhim.