For which his mother coolly puts him down by saying, "Do not lie, Ildabaoth, for the father of all, the first man ( Anthropos ) is above thee , and so is Anthropos , the Son of Anthropos " (Irenaeus, b.
I, ch.
xxx., 6).
This is a good proof that there were three Logoi (besides the Seven born of the First), one of these being the Solar Logos.
And, again, who was that "Anthropos" himself, so much higher than Ildabaoth?
The Gnostic records alone can solve this riddle.
In Pistis Sophia the four-vowelled name I EOV is in each case accompanied by the epithet of "the Primal, or First man." This shows again that the gnosis was but an echo of our archaic doctrine.
The names answering to Parabrahm, to Brahm, and Manu (the first thinking man) are composed of one-vowelled, three-vowelled and seven-vowelled sounds.
Marcus, whose philosophy was certainly more Pythagorean than anything else, speaks of a revelation to him of the seven heavens sounding each one vowel as they pronounced the seven names of the seven (angelic) hierarchies.
When spirit has permeated every minutest atom of the seven principles of Kosmos, then the secondary creation, after the above-mentioned period of rest, begins.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See "Isis Unveiled," Vol.
II., p.
183.
** See also King's Gnostics.
Other sects regarded Jehovah as Ildabaoth himself King identifies him with Saturn.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 450 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"The creators (Elohim) outline in the second 'hour' the shape of man," says Rabbi Simeon ( The Nuctameron of the Hebrews ) .
"There are twelve hours in the day," says the Mishna , "and it is during these that creation is accomplished." The "twelve hours of the day" are again the dwarfed copy, the faint, yet faithful, echo of primitive Wisdom.
They are like the 12,000 divine years of the gods, a cyclic blind.
Every "Day of Brahma" has 14 Manus, which the Hebrew Kabalists, following, however, in this the Chaldeans, have disguised into 12 "Hours."* The Nuctameron of Apollonius of Tyana is the same thing.
"The Dodecahedron lies concealed in the perfect Cube," say the Kabalists.
The mystic meaning of this is, that the twelve great transformations of Spirit into matter (the 12,000 divine years) take place during the four great ages, or the first Mahayuga.
Beginning with the metaphysical and the supra-human, it ends in the physical and purely human natures of Kosmos and man.
Eastern philosophy can give the number of mortal years that run along the line of spiritual and physical evolutions of the seen and the unseen, if Western science fails to do so.
Primary Creation is called the Creation of Light (Spirit); and the Secondary -- that of Darkness (matter).** Both are found in Genesis , chap.
i., v.
2, and at the beginning of chapter ii.
The first is the emanation of self -born gods (Elohim); the second of physical nature.
This is why it is said in the Zohar: -- "Oh, companions, companions, man as emanation was both man and woman; as well on the side of the F ATHER as on the side of the M OTHER.
And this is the sense of the words: -- And Elohim spoke: 'Let there be Light and it was Light!' .
.
.
And this is the 'two-fold man'" Light, moreover, on our plane, is darkness in the higher spheres.
"Man and woman on the side of the FATHER" (Spirit) refers to Primary Creation; and on the side of the Mother (matter) to the secondary.
The two-fold man is Adam Kadmon, the male and female abstract prototype and the differentiated Elohim .
Man proceeds from the Dhyan Chohan, and is a "Fallen Angel," a god in exile, as will be shown.
In India these creations were described as follows: -- (I.) Mahat-tattwa creation -- so-called because it was the primordial self-evolution of that which had to become Mahat -- the "divine M IND, conscious and intelligent"; esoterically, "the spirit of the Universal soul." .
.
.
"Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency ( the potency of that cause ); every produced cause comes by its proper nature." ( Vishnu Purana.
) "Seeing that the potencies of all beings are under- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed.
See supra , the quotation from Ibn-Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc.
** This must not be confused with precosmic " D ARKNESS," the Divine ALL.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 451 MANY VERSIONS OF THE ONE TRUTH.
stood only through the knowledge of That (Brahma), which is beyond reasoning, creation, and the like, such potencies are referable to Brahma." T HAT, then, precedes the manifestation.
"The first was Mahat ," says Linga Purana; for the ONE (the That ) is neither first nor last , but ALL.
Exoterically, however, this manifestation is the work of the "Supreme One" (a natural effect , rather, of an Eternal Cause); or, as the Commentator says, it might have been understood to mean that Brahma was then created (?), being identified with Mahat, active intelligence or the operating will of the Supreme.
Esoteric philosophy renders it "the operating LAW." It is on the right comprehension of this tenet in the Brahmanas and Puranas that hangs, we believe, the apple of discord between the three Vedantin Sects: the Advaita, Dwaita, and the Visishtadvaitas.
The first arguing rightly that Parabrahman, having no relation, as the absolute all , to the manifested world -- the Infinite having no connection with the finite -- can neither will nor create; that, therefore, Brahma, Mahat, Iswara, or whatever name the creative power may be known by, creative gods and all, are simply an illusive aspect of Parabrahmam in the conception of the conceivers; while the other sects identify the impersonal Cause with the Creator, or Iswara.
Mahat (or Maha-Buddhi) is, with the Vaishnavas, however, divine mind in active operation , or, as Anaxagoras has it, "an ordering and disposing mind, which was the cause of all things," -- [[ Nous o diakosmonte kai panton aitios ]].
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The passage states that Parabrahman 'having no relation, as the absolute all, to the manifested world' 'can neither will nor create,' describing the divine by negation of all positive attributes.
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 repeatedly maps structures across levels: the twelve hours as 'dwarfed copy' of the 12,000 divine years, the Dodecahedron concealed in the Cube, and Gnostic names corresponding to Hindu ones.
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 entire passage is a comparative cosmogony, narrating the origin of the cosmos through Primary and Secondary Creation, the twelve hours, the seven heavens, and Mahat-tattwa creation across Gnostic, Hindu, and Kabbalistic traditions.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
Ildabaoth is presented as the secondary creator below the supreme Anthropos, the classic Gnostic demiurge who fashions matter while being ignorant of the higher source.
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 states 'When spirit has permeated every minutest atom of the seven principles of Kosmos,' asserting the divine pervades all of creation.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
Primary Creation is explicitly called 'the Creation of Light (Spirit)' and the emanation of 'self-born gods (Elohim),' with light as the luminous quality of the divine.
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 traces a clear cascade from Parabrahm through Brahm, the Logoi, the Seven, the Elohim, down to physical nature, with each level below the previous.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The passage explicitly states 'man as emanation was both man and woman; as well on the side of the FATHER as on the side of the MOTHER,' asserting the masculine-feminine principle as structural at every level of creation.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage contrasts esoteric and exoteric readings throughout, noting that 'Esoteric philosophy renders it the operating LAW' while exoteric readings misidentify Brahma as a created being, and that the 'gnosis was but an echo of our archaic doctrine.'
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 passage describes 'the twelve great transformations of Spirit into matter' proceeding 'from the metaphysical and the supra-human' to 'the physical and purely human natures of Kosmos and man,' a staged descent of spirit into matter.
The twenty-two Hebrew letters as the building blocks through which God creates and sustains all existence.
The passage describes the four-vowelled name I EOV, and the one-vowelled, three-vowelled, and seven-vowelled sounds composing divine names, with seven heavens each sounding one vowel.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The passage explicitly identifies 'three Logoi (besides the Seven born of the First), one of these being the Solar Logos' as mediating creative principles.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
Mahat is identified as 'the divine MIND, conscious and intelligent' and 'the spirit of the Universal soul,' and the passage equates it with Anaxagoras's Nous as 'the cause of all things.'
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.
Adam Kadmon is described as the 'male and female abstract prototype' of the cosmos, and man 'proceeds from the Dhyan Chohan,' making the human a small-scale image of the whole.
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 passage states 'Light, moreover, on our plane, is darkness in the higher spheres,' and contrasts Primary Creation (Light/Spirit) with Secondary Creation (Darkness/Matter) as two poles of the same creative process.
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 distinguishes exoteric from esoteric readings of the same texts, holding that the outer meaning (Brahma as created) and inner meaning (the operating LAW) are both valid on their respective planes.