Page 55 (part 10)

T HE B REATH NEEDED THE SPIRIT OF LIFE; THE SOLAR LHAS BREATHED IT INTO ITS FORM. THE BREATH NEEDED A MIRROR OF ITS BODY ( astral shadow ); " W E GAVE IT OUR OWN," SAID THE D HYANIS. T HE BREATH NEEDED A VEHICLE OF DESIRES ( Kama Rupa ); " I T HAS IT," SAID THE D RAINER OF W ATERS ( Suchi, the fire of passion and animal instinct ) . T HE BREATH NEEDS A MIND TO EMBRACE THE U NIVERSE; " W E CANNOT GIVE THAT," SAID THE F ATHERS. " I NEVER HAD IT," SAID THE S PIRIT OF THE E ARTH. " T HE FORM WOULD BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE," SAID THE G REAT ( solar ) F IRE . . . . ( nascent ) M AN REMAINED AN EMPTY, SENSELESS B HUTA . . . . T HUS HAVE THE BONELESS GIVEN LIFE TO THOSE WHO BECAME ( later ) MEN WITH BONES IN THE THIRD ( race ) ( a ) . As a full explanation is found in Stanza V. ( Vide paragraph ( a )), a few remarks will now suffice. The "Father" of primitive physical man, or of his body, is the vital electric principle residing in the Sun. The Moon is its Mother, because of that mysterious power in the Moon which has as decided an influence upon human gestation and generation, which it regulates, as it has on the growth of plants and animals. The "Wind" or Ether, standing in this case for the agent of transmission by which those influences are carried down from the two luminaries and diffused upon Earth, is referred to as the "nurse"; while "Spiritual Fire" alone makes of man a divine and perfect entity. Now what is that "Spiritual Fire"? In alchemy it is HYDROGEN, in general; while in esoteric actuality it is the emanation or the Ray which proceeds from its noumenon, the "Dhyan of the first Element." Hydrogen is gas only on our terrestrial plane. But even in chemistry hydrogen "would be the only existing form of matter, in our sense of the term,"* and is very nearly allied to protyle, which is our layam. It is the father and generator, so to say, or rather the Upadhi (basis), of both AIR and WATER, and is "fire, air and water," in fact: one under three aspects; hence the chemical and alchemical trinity. In the world of manifestation or matter it is the objective symbol and the material emanation from the subjective and purely spiritual entitative Being in the region of noumena. Well might Godfrey Higgins have compared Hydrogen to, and even identified it with, the To ON, the "One" of the Greeks. For, as he remarks, Hydrogen is not Water, though it generates it; Hydrogen is not fire, though it manifests or creates it; nor is it Air, though air may be regarded as a product of the union of Water and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See " Genesis of the Elements, " by Prof. W. Crookes, p. 21. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 106 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Fire -- since Hydrogen is found in the aqueous element of the atmosphere. It is three in one. If one studies comparative Theogony, it is easy to find that the secret of these "Fires" was taught in the Mysteries of every ancient people, pre-eminently in Samothrace. There is not the smallest doubt that the Kabeiri, the most arcane of all the ancient deities, gods and men, great deities and Titans, are identical with the Kumaras and Rudras headed by Kartikeya -- a Kumara also. This is quite evident even exoterically; and these Hindu deities were, like the Kabeiri, the personified sacred Fires of the most occult powers of Nature. The several branches of the Aryan Race, the Asiatic and the European, the Hindu and the Greek, did their best to conceal their true nature, if not their importance. As in the case of the Kumaras, the number of the Kabeiri is uncertain. Some say that there were three or four only; others say seven. Aschieros, Achiosersa, Achiochersus, and Camillus may very well stand for the alter egos of the four Kumaras -- Sanat-Kumara, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana. The former deities, whose reputed father was Vulcan, were often confounded with the Dioscuri, Corybantes, Anaces, etc.; just as the Kumara, whose reputed father is Brahma, (or rather, the "Flame of his Wrath," which prompted him to perform the ninth or Kumara creation, resulting in Rudra or Nilalohita (Siva) and the Kumaras), were confounded with the Asuras, the Rudras, and the Pitris, for the simple reason that they are all one -- i.e. , correlative Forces and Fires. There is no space to describe these "fires" and their real meaning here, though we may attempt to do so if the third and fourth volumes of this work are ever published. Meanwhile a few more explanations may be added. The foregoing are all mysteries which must be left to the personal intuition of the student for solution, rather than described. If he would learn something of the secret of the FIRES, let him turn to certain works of the Alchemists, who very correctly connect fire with every element, as do the Occultists. The reader must remember that the ancients considered religion, and the natural sciences along with philosophy, to be closely and inseparably linked together. AEsculapius was the Son of Apollo -- the Sun or FIRE of Life; at once Helios, Pythios, and the god of oracular Wisdom. In exoteric religions, as much as in esoteric philosophy, the Elements -- especially fire, water, and air -- are made the progenitors of our five physical senses, and hence are directly connected (in an occult way) with them. These physical senses pertain even to a lower creation than the one called in the Puranas Pratisarga, or secondary Creation. "Liquid fire proceeds from indiscrete fire," says an Occult axiom. "The Circle is the THOUGHT; the diameter (or the line) is the WORD; [[Vol. 2, Page]] 107 BATH-KOL, DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE. and their union is LIFE." In the Kabala, Bath-Kol is the daughter of the Divine Voice, or primordial light, Shekinah. In the Puranas and Hindu exotericism, Vach (the Voice) is the female Logos of Brahma -- a permutation of Aditi, primordial light.