Page 42 (part 6)

should have selected a god against whose commandments Jesus was the first one to rise in rebellion. The Planetary origin of the Monad (Soul) and of its faculties was taught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from the Earth, each soul born in, and from, the "Boundless Light,"* had to pass through the seven planetary regions both ways. The pure Dhyani and Devas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the Zoroastrians, the Seven Daevas, the ministers of Ahriman, "each chained to his planet" ( see Origen ' s Copy of the Chart ); with the Brahmins, the Asuras and some of its Rishis -- good, bad and indifferent; and among the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth or (Hermes) who was the chief of the seven whose names are given by Origen as Adonai , genius of the Sun; Tao , of the Moon; Eloi , of Jupiter; Sabao , of Mars; Orai , of Venus; Astaphai , of Mercury; and Ildabaoth (Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally, the Pistis - Sophia , which the greatest modern authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King, refers to as "that precious monument of Gnosticism," -- this old document echoes, while distorting it to sectarian purposes, the archaic belief of the ages. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres (the planets) create the monads (the Souls) from their own substance out of the "tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments," endowing the monads with a spark of the Divine Light, which is their substance. It will be shown in Book II. why these "Lords of the Zodiac and Spheres" have been transformed by sectarian theology into the rebellious angels of the Christians, who took them from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without understanding the significance of the allegory. ( Vide Part II. , " On the Seven Souls ," and Section xv. in this Part , " G ODS, M ONADS AND A TOMS"). As usual, that which is and was from its beginning divine, pure, and spiritual in its earliest unity, became, by reason of its differentiation by the distorted prism of man's conceptions, human and impure, as reflecting man's own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn became reviled by the worshippers of other "gods." The nations born under Saturn -- the Jewish, for instance -- with whom he had become Jehovah, after having been held as a son of Saturn, or Ilda-Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the book of Jasher -- were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury, or any other planet, except Saturn-Jehovah; genealogies and prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus the initiate (or Jehoshua) -- the type from whom the "historical" Jesus was [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * C. W. King, identifies it with "that summum bonum of Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist Nirvana," perfect repose, the Epicurean Indolentia , which looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 578 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. copied -- was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognised no Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary god beside his own "Father," whom he knew, and with whom he communed as every high initiate does, "Spirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul." This can hardly be taken exception to, unless the critic explains to every one's satisfaction the strange sentences put in the mouth of Jesus by the author of the Fourth Gospel ( chapter viii.) during his disputes with the Pharisees. "I know ye are Abraham's seed* . . . I speak the things which I have seen with my Father; and ye do the things which ye heard from your Father. . . . . Ye do the works of your Father. . . . . Ye are of your Father, the Devil. . . . . He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When one speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own; for his father also is a liar and the father thereof," etc., etc. That "Father" of the Pharisees was Jehovah, because identical with Cain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc. -- the planet under which they were born, and the God whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an occult meaning sought in these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are pronounced by one who threatened with hell-fire anyone who says simply raca (fool) to his brother ( Matthew v . , 22). And evidently, again, the planets are not merely spheres, twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but the domains of various beings with whom the profane are so far unacquainted; nevertheless, having a mysterious, unbroken, and powerful connection with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple of a god, and these gods themselves are the temples of G OD, the Unknown " Not Spirit." There is nothing profane in the Universe. All Nature is a consecrated place, as Young says: -- "Each of these Stars is a religious house." . . . . Thus can all exoteric religions be shown the falsified copies of the esoteric teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible for the reaction in favour of materialism of our day. It is by worshiping and enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells -- personified for purposes of allegory -- of pagan ideals, that the latest exoteric religion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the higher classes worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant masses are made to worship an idol with feet of clay. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro-symbology, and he is the forefather of the Jehovistic Jews.