Page 57 (part 2)

Therefore, supported on the one hand by that science which shows to us progressive development and an internal cause for every external modification, as a law in Nature; and, on the other hand, by an implicit faith in the wisdom -- we may say pansophia even -- of the universal traditions gathered and preserved by the Initiates, who have perfected them into an almost faultless system -- thus supported, we venture to state the doctrine clearly. In an able article, written some fifteen years ago, our learned and respected friend Prof. Alex. Wilder, of New York, shows the absolute logic and necessity of believing "The Primeval Race Double-Sexed," and gives a number of scientific reasons for it.* He argues firstly, "that a large part of the vegetable creation exhibits the phenomenon of bisexuality . . . the Linnaean classification enumerating thus almost all plants. This is the case in the superior families of the vegetable kingdoms as much as in the lower forms, from the Hemp to the Lombardy Poplar and Ailanthus. In the animal kingdom, in insect life, the moth generates a worm, as in the Mysteries the great secret was expressed: " Taurus Draconem genuit, et Taurum Draco. " The coral-producing family, which, according to Agassiz, 'has spent many hundreds of thousands of years, during the present geological period, in building out the peninsula of Florida . . . . produce their offspring from themselves like the buds and ramifications in a tree.' Bees are somewhat in the same line . . . . The Aphides or plant lice keep house like Amazons, and virgin parents perpetuate the Race for ten successive generations." What say the old sages, the philosopher-teachers of antiquity. Aristophanes speaks thus on the subject in Plato's " Banquet ": "Our nature of old was not the same as it is now. It was androgynous, the form and name partaking of, and being common to both the male and female. . . . Their bodies were round, and the manner of their running [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Extracts from that Essay in " The Theosophist, " of February, 1883. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 134 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. circular.* They were terrible in force and strength and had prodigious ambition. Hence Zeus divided each of them into two, making them weaker; Apollo, under his direction, closed up the skin." Meshia and Meshiane were but a single individual with the old Persians. "They also taught that man was the product of the tree of life, growing in androgynous pairs, till they were separated at a subsequent modification of the human form.**" In the Toleduth (generation) of Adam, the verse "God created ( bara, brought forth) man in his image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them," if read esoterically will yield the true sense, viz.: "The Elohim (Gods) brought forth from themselves (by modification) man in their image . . . . created they him (collective humanity, or Adam ), male and female created he (collective deity) them."*** This will show the esoteric point. The sexless Race was their first production, a modification of and from themselves, the pure spiritual existences; and this was Adam solus. Thence came the second Race: Adam-Eve or Jod-Heva, inactive androgynes; and finally the Third, or the " Separating Hermaphrodite," Cain and Abel, who produce the Fourth, Seth-Enos, etc. It is that Third, the last semi-spiritual race , which was also the last vehicle of the divine and innate Wisdom, ingenerate in the Enochs, the Seers of that Mankind. The Fourth, which had tasted from the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil -- Wisdom united already to earthy, and therefore impure, intelligence **** had consequently to acquire that Wisdom by initiation and great struggle. And the union of Wisdom and Intelligence, the former ruling the latter, is called in the Hermetic books "the God possessing the double fecundity of the two sexes." Mystically Jesus was held to be man-woman. See also in the Orphic hymns, sung during the Mysteries, we find: [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Compare Ezekiel's vision (chap. i) of the four divine beings who "had the likeness of a man" and yet had the appearance of a wheel, "when they went they went upon their four sides . . . . for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheel." ** See Prof. Wilder's Essay " The Primeval Race Double-Sexed. " *** Eugibinus, a Christian, and the Rabbis Samuel, Manasseh ben Israel, and Maimonides taught that "Adam had two faces and one person, and from the beginning he was both male and female -- male on one side and female on the other (like Manu's Brahma), but afterwards the parts were separated." The one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm of David recited by Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eliazar is evidence of this. "Thou hast fashioned me behind and before," not beset as in the Bible, which is absurd and meaningless, and this shows, as Prof. Wilder thinks, "that the primeval form of mankind was androgynous." **** See the union of Chochmah, Wisdom, with Binah , Intelligence, or Jehovah, the Demiurge, called Understanding in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. vii. Unto men Wisdom (divine occult Wisdom) crieth: "Oh, ye simple, understand Wisdom; and ye fools, be of an understanding heart. " It is spirit and matter , the nous and the psyche; of the latter of which St. James says that it is "earthly, sensual, and devilish." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 135 THE VIRGIN THIRD RACE. "Zeus is a male, Zeus is an immortal maid." The Egyptian Ammon was the goddess Neith, in his other half. Jupiter has female breasts, Venus is bearded in some of her statues, and Ila, the goddess, is also Su-Dyumna, the god, as Vaivasvata's progeny. "The name Adam, " says Professor A. Wilder, "or man, itself implies this double form of existence. It is identical with Athamas, or Thomas (Tamil Tam ), which is rendered by the Greek Didumos, a twin; if, therefore, the first woman was formed subsequently to the first man, she must, as a logical necessity, be 'taken out of man' . . . and the side which the Elohim had taken from man, 'made he a woman' ( Gen. ii. ). The Hebrew word here used is Tzala, which bears the translation we have given.