Page 47 (part 6)

1, Page]] 645 ANCIENT AND MODERN PROPHECIES. and tribe, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race, their Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now, several of them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali-Yuga , an age B LACK WITH H ORRORS. . . . . It is true, on the other hand, that the exoteric cycles of every nation have been correctly made to be derived from, and depend on, sidereal motions. The latter are inseparably blended with the destinies of nations and men. But in their purely physical sense, Europe knows of no other cycles than the astronomical, and makes its computations accordingly. Nor will it hear of any other than imaginary circles or circuits in the starry heavens that gird them -- "With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb . . ." But with the pagans, with whom, as Coleridge has it -- ". . . . . Time, cyclical time, was their abstraction of the Deity . ." that "Deity" manifesting co-ordinately with, and only through Karma, and being that KARMA-NEMESIS itself, the cycles meant something more than a mere succession of events, or a periodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration. For they were generally marked with recurrences of a more varied and intellectual character than are exhibited in the periodical return of seasons or of certain constellations. Modern wisdom is satisfied with astronomical computations and prophecies based on unerring mathematical laws. Ancient Wisdom added to the cold shell of astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit -- ASTROLOGY. And, as the sidereal motions do regulate and determine other events on Earth -- besides potatoes and the periodical disease of that useful vegetable -- (a statement which, not being amenable to scientific explanation, is merely derided, while accepted) -- those events have to be allowed to find themselves predetermined by even simple astronomical computations. Believers in astrology will understand our meaning, sceptics will laugh at the belief and mock the idea. Thus they shut their eyes, ostrich-like, to their own fate. . . . . . .* [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth. This is what we read: "Whatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a mystery . . . . all in Nature for us is the unknown . . . Yet they are numerous, those superficial minds for whom nothing can be produced by natural forces outside of facts observed long ago, consecrated in books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help of theories whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated their insufficiency, . . . . I do not pretend to contest the possibility of invisible Beings , of a nature different from ours and susceptible of moving matter to action. Profound philosophers have admitted it in all epochs as a consequence of the great law of continuity which rules the Universe. That intellectual life, which we see starting in some way from non-being ( neant ) and gradually reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reappear only in the infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little probable." Therefore . . "I [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 1, Page]] 646 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. This because their little historical period, so called, allows them no margin for comparison. Sidereal heaven is before them; and though their spiritual vision is still unopened and the atmospheric dust of terrestrial origin seals their sight and chains it to the limits of physical systems, still they do not fail to perceive the movements and note the behaviour of meteors and comets. They record the periodical advents of those wanderers and "flaming messengers," and prophesy, in consequence, earthquakes, meteoric showers, the apparition of certain stars, comets, etc., etc. Are they soothsayers for all that? No, they are learned astronomers. Why, then, should occultists and astrologers, as learned, be disbelieved, when they prophesy the return of some cyclic event on the same mathematical principle? Why should the claim that they know it be ridiculed? Their forefathers and predecessors, having recorded the recurrence of such events in their time and day, throughout a period embracing hundreds of thousands of years, the conjunction of the same constellations must necessarily produce, if not quite the same, at any rate, similar effects. Are the prophecies derided, because of the claim of the hundreds of thousands of years of observation, and the millions of years of the human races? In its turn modern Science is laughed at for its far more modest geological and anthropological figures, by those who hold to Biblical chronology. Thus Karma adjusts even human laughter at the mutual expense of sects, learned societies, and individuals. Yet in the prognostication of such future events, at any rate, all foretold on the authority of cyclic recurrences, there is no psychic phenomenon involved. It is neither prevision , nor prophecy; no more than is the signalling of a comet or star, several years before its appearance. It is simply knowledge and mathematically correct computations which enable the W ISE M EN OF THE E AST to foretell, for instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe; France, nearing such a point of her cycle, and Europe in general threatened with, or rather, on the eve of, a cataclysm, which her own cycle of racial Karma has led her to. The reliability of the information depends, of course, on the acceptation or rejection of the claim for a tremendous period of historical observation. Eastern Initiates maintain that they have preserved records of the racial development and of events of universal import ever since the beginning of the Fourth Race -- that which preceded being traditional. Moreover, those who believe in Seership and Occult [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] no more deny the existence of Spirits than I deny soul while trying to explain certain facts without their hypothesis . . ." "The Non-Defined Forces," Historical and Experimental Researches, p. 3. The above is written by A. de Rochas, a well-known man of science in France, his work being one of the signs of the time. (Paris: Masson, Boulevard St. Germain, 1887.) [[Vol. 1, Page]] 647 ASTROLOGY A SCIENCE. powers will have no difficulty in crediting the general character, at least, of the information given, even if traditional, once the latter is checked and corrected by the corroboration of clairvoyance and esoteric knowledge. But in the present case no such metaphysical belief is claimed as our chief dependence, but a proof is given on what, to every Occultist, is quite scientific evidence -- the records preserved through the Zodiac for incalculable ages.