"the causes had to produce effects on earth."** Again, in the ancient Quiche Manuscript, the Popol Vuh -- published by the late Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg -- the first men are described as a race "whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once": thus showing the divine knowledge of Gods, not mortals.
The Secret Doctrine, correcting the unavoidable exaggerations of popular fancy, gives the facts as they are recorded in the Archaic symbols.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * In Isis Unveiled several of these Gnostic systems are given.
One is taken from the Codex Nazaraeus, the Scriptures of the Nazarenes, who, although they existed long before the days of Christ, and even before the laws of Moses, were Gnostics, and many of them Initiates.
They held their "Mysteries of Life" in Nazara (ancient and modern Nazareth), and their doctrines are a faithful echo of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine -- some of which we are now endeavouring to explain.
** See the translation from the Greek by Francois, Monsieur de Foix, Evesque d'Ayre: the work dedicated to Marguerite de France, Reine de Navarre.
Edition of 1579, Bordeaux.
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 97 THE TREES OF LIFE.
( b ) These "shadows" were born "each of his own colour and kind," each also "inferior to his creator," because the latter was a complete being of his kind.
The Commentaries refer the first sentence to the colour or complexion of each human race thus evolved.
In Pymander, the Seven primitive men, created by Nature from the "heavenly Man," all partake of the qualities of the "Seven Governors, " or Rulers, who loved Man -- their own reflection and synthesis.
In the Norse Legends, one recognizes in Asgard, the habitat of the gods, as also in the Ases themselves, the same mystical loci and personifications woven into the popular "myths," as in our Secret Doctrine; and we find them in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Mazdean Scriptures and the Kabala.
The Ases of Scandinavia, the rulers of the world which preceded ours, whose name means literally the "pillars of the world," its "supports," are thus identical with the Greek Cosmocratores, the "Seven Workmen or Rectors" of Pymander, the seven Rishis and Pitris of India, the seven Chaldean gods and seven evil spirits, the seven Kabalistic Sephiroth synthesised by the upper triad, and even the seven Planetary Spirits of the Christian mystics.
The Ases create the earth, the seas, the sky and the clouds, the whole visible world, from the remains of the slain giant Ymir; but they do not create M AN, but only his form from the Ask or ash-tree.
It is Odin who endows him with life and soul, after Lodur had given him blood and bones, and finally it is Honir who furnishes him with his intellect ( manas ) and with his conscious senses.
The Norse Ask, the Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men of the generation of bronze, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzite tree of the Popol-Vuh, out of which the Mexican third race of men was created, are all one.* This may be plainly seen by any reader.
But the Occult reason why the Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindu Aswatha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden -- who among the western scholars can tell?** Nevertheless, the fruits of all those "Trees," whether Pippala or Haoma or yet the more prosaic apple, are the "plants of life," in fact and verity.
The prototypes of our races were all enclosed in the microcosmic tree, which grew and developed within and under the great mundane macrocosmic tree***; and the mystery is half revealed in the Dirghotamas, where it is said: "Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come spirits who [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Max Muller's review of the Popol-Vuh.
** Mr.
James Darmesteter, the translator of the Vendidad, speaking of it, says: " The tree, whatever it is .
.
." (p.
209).
*** Plato's " Timaeus ." [[Vol.
2, Page]] 98 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
love the science, and where the gods produce all marvels." As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all those mundane trees, the "Serpent" dwells.
But while the Macroscosmic tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree are the Serpents of the manifested Wisdom.
One is the One and All; the others are its reflected parts.
The "tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth.
Everywhere, it is the same.
The creating powers produce Man, but fail in their final object.
All these logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal spirit, reflected in the Mind ( manas ) alone; they fail, and they are all represented as being punished for the failure, if not for the attempt.
What is the nature of the punishment?
A sentence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which is our earth ; the lowest in its chain ; an "eternity" -- meaning the duration of the life-cycle -- in the darkness of matter, or within animal Man.
It has pleased the half ignorant and half designing Church Fathers to disfigure the graphic symbol.
They took advantage of the metaphor and allegory found in every old religion to turn them to the benefit of the new one.
Thus man was transformed into the darkness of a material hell; his divine consciousness, obtained from his indwelling Principle (the Manasa), or the incarnated Deva, became the glaring flames of the infernal region; and our globe that Hell itself.
Pippala, Haoma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were denounced as the forbidden fruit, and the "Serpent of Wisdom," the Voice of reason and consciousness, remained identified for ages with the Fallen Angel, which is the old Dragon, the Devil!
( Vide Part II., "The Evil Spirit, who, or what?") The same for the other high symbols.
The Svastica, the most sacred and mystic symbol in India, the "Jaina-Cross" as it is now called by the Masons, notwithstanding its direct connection, and even identity with the Christian Cross, has become dishonoured in the same manner.
It is the "devil's sign," we are told by the Indian missionaries.
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's central argument is that the same structure appears across Norse, Hindu, Greek, Kabbalistic, Mexican, and Christian traditions — 'Everywhere, it is the same' — making the Hermetic axiom of structural reflection at every scale the driving thesis.
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 passage presents multiple creation narratives: the Ases creating the world from Ymir's remains, the creation of man from the ash-tree, the Popol Vuh creation of the third race from the Tzite tree, and the Pymander account of the heavenly Man creating primitive men.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
The creating powers (Ases, logoi) fashion the form of man but 'fail in their final object' of endowing him with conscious immortal spirit, and are 'punished for the failure' by imprisonment in matter — a clear demiurgic narrative of a secondary creator who cannot complete the work.
Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.
The 'conscious immortal spirit' that the logoi strive to endow man with, and the 'divine consciousness' obtained from the indwelling Manasa or incarnated Deva that becomes trapped in the 'darkness of matter,' describe fragments of divine light imprisoned in material bodies.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
Pippala, Haoma, and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge are explicitly identified as the 'forbidden fruit,' and the Serpent of Wisdom (the Voice of reason and consciousness) is identified as the agent of this transgressive knowing, which the Church Fathers recast as the Devil.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly frames the Secret Doctrine as revealing the true meaning behind 'unavoidable exaggerations of popular fancy' and 'Archaic symbols,' and criticizes the Church Fathers for 'disfigur[ing] the graphic symbol' — the outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
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 states 'All these logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal spirit, reflected in the Mind (manas) alone,' using the term for the creative ordering principles that produce the world.
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.
The passage explicitly states that 'The prototypes of our races were all enclosed in the microcosmic tree, which grew and developed within and under the great mundane macrocosmic tree' and that 'The tree is man himself,' making the human as small-scale image of the cosmos a central theme.
Organized, persisting groups — fraternities, orders, lodges — that maintain esoteric knowledge or practices as an institution distinct from public religion or mainstream society, holding 'the keys' collectively rather than through any one master-disciple pair. Distinct from esoteric_lineage (a genealogical chain of individual transmission, not an institution) and hidden_sayings (the concealment of a teaching's meaning, independent of whether any organized body holds it).
The Nazarenes are described as an organized group holding 'Mysteries of Life' in a specific location (Nazara), functioning as an esoteric institution distinct from public religion.
The diagrammatic arrangement of the ten Sephirot as a structured 'Tree of Life' mapping divine and cosmic forces.
The 'Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree' is explicitly named as one of the many world trees that are all identified as one, linking the Kabbalistic emanation diagram to the cosmic tree tradition.
The ten attributes or emanations through which the Ein Sof (Infinite) reveals itself and creates the universe in Kabbalistic theology.
The 'seven Kabalistic Sephiroth synthesised by the upper triad' are explicitly named as equivalent to the Ases, the Seven Workmen of Pymander, and other divine series across traditions.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The creation of man distributes three distinct principles: Odin gives 'life and soul,' Lodur gives 'blood and bones' (matter), and Honir gives 'intellect (manas) and conscious senses' — a clear tripartite division of spirit, soul, and body.
A vertical structure connecting cosmic levels — a tree, pillar, mountain, or ladder linking heaven, earth, and underworld around which the cosmos is organised. Yggdrasil binding the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology, the Kalevala's Sampo as world-pillar, the Mayan ceiba, the Vedic Aśvattha, the shamanic central tree of Eliade's analyses. Cosmic-structural in character: distinct from sefirot_tree (a kabbalistic emanation diagram) and emanation_hierarchy (an ontological cascade); world_tree_axis is the cosmos's spine rather than the divine's outflow.
The entire passage is structured around the identification of Yggdrasil, the Hindu Aswatha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, the Tibetan Zampun, the Sephirothal Tree, the Holy Tree of Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden as one and the same cosmic axis, with the microcosmic tree growing within the macrocosmic tree.