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We must bear in mind that most of the men of science will not allow man to have appeared before the Quaternary period, and thus shut him out completely from the Cenozoic times. Here we have extinct species of animals, which disappeared from the face of the Earth millions of years ago, described by, and known to, nations whose civilization, it is said, could hardly have begun a few thousand years ago. How is this? Evidently either the Mesozoic time has to be made to overlap the Quaternary period, or man must be made the contemporary of the Pterodactyl and the Plesiosaurus. It does not stand to reason, because the Occultists believe in and defend ancient wisdom and science, even though winged saurians are called "flying camels" in the translations of the Zohar, that we believe as readily in all the stories which the middle ages give us of such dragons. Pterodactyls and Plesiosauri ceased to exist with the bulk [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * We read in the " Memoire a l ' Academie " of the "naive astonishment of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, when M. de Paravey showed to him in some old Chinese works and Babylonian tiles dragons, . . . . saurians and ornithorhynchuses (aquatic animals found only in Australia ) , etc., extinct animals that he had thought unknown on earth. . . . till his own day." ** See Isaiah, xxx. 6: "The viper and the flying serpent unto the land of trouble and anguish," and the fiery serpents conquered by the brazen serpent of Moses. *** The fossils reconstructed by science, which we know ought to be sufficient warrant for the possibility of even a Leviathan, let alone Isaiah's flying serpents, or saraph mehophep, which words are translated in all the Hebrew dictionaries as "saraph," enflamed or fiery venom, and "mehophep," flying . But, although Christian theology has always connected both ( Leviathan and saraph mehophep ) with the devil, the expressions are metaphorical and have nought to do with the "evil one." But the word Dracon has become a synonym for the latter. In Bretagne the word Drouk now signifies "devil," whence, as we are told by Cambry (" Monuments Celtiques, " p. 299), the devil's tomb in England, Draghedanum sepulcrum. In Languedoc the meteoric fires and will-o ' -the-wisps are called Dragg , and in Bretagne Dreag, Wraie (or wraith), the castle of Drogheda in Ireland meaning the devil's castle. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 207 KIRCHER'S DRAGON. of the Third Race. When, therefore, we are gravely asked by Roman Catholic writers to credit Christopher Scherer's and Father Kircher's cock-and-bull stories of their having seen with their own eyes living fiery and flying dragons, respectively in 1619 and 1669, we may be allowed to regard their assertions as either dreams or fibs.* Nor shall we regard otherwise than as a poetical license that other story told of Petrarch, who, while following one day his Laura in the woods and passing near a cave, is credited with having found a dragon, whom he forthwith stabbed with his dagger and killed, thus preventing the monster from devouring the lady of his heart.** We would willingly believe the story had Petrarch lived in the days of Atlantis, when such antediluvian monsters may still have existed. We deny their existence in our present era. The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another. The former is denied by the majority because it exists and lives in the very depths of the ocean, is very scarce, and rises to the surface only when compelled, perhaps, by hunger. Thus keeping invisible, it may exist and still be denied. But if there was such a thing as a dragon of the above description, how could it have ever escaped detection? It is a creature contemporary with the earliest Fifth Race, and exists no more. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The ultramontane writers accept the whole series of draconian stories given by Father Kircher ( Edipus AEgyptiacus, " De Genere Draconum, ") quite seriously. According to that Jesuit, he himself saw a dragon which was killed in 1669 by a Roman peasant, as the director of the Museo Barberini sent it to him, to take the beast's likeness, which Father Kircher did and had it published in one of his in-folios. After this he received a letter from Christopher Scherer, Prefect of the Canton of Soleure, Switzerland, in which that official certifies to his having seen himself with his own eyes, one fine summer night in 1619, a living dragon. Having remained on his balcony "to contemplate the perfect purity of the firmament," he writes, "I saw a fiery, shining dragon rise from one of the caves of Mount Pilatus and direct itself rapidly towards Fluelen to the other end of the lake. Enormous in size, his tail was still longer and his neck very extended. His head and jaws were those of a serpent. In flying he emitted on his way numerous sparks (? !) . . . . I thought at first I was seeing a meteor, but soon looking more attentively, I was convinced by his flight and the conformation of his body that I saw a veritable dragon. I am happy to be thus able to enlighten your Reverence on the very real existence of those animals"; in dreams, the writer ought to have added, of long past ages. ** As a convincing proof of the reality of the fact, a Roman Catholic refers the reader to the picture of that incident painted by Simon de Sienne, a friend of the poet, on the portal of the Church Notre Dame du Don at Avignon; notwithstanding the prohibition of the Sovereign Pontiff, who "would not allow this triumph of love to be enthroned in the holy place"; and adds: "Time has injured and rubbed out the work of art, but has not weakened its tradition." De Mirville's "Dragon-Devils" of our era seem to have no luck, as they disappear most mysteriously from the museums where they are said to have been. Thus the dragon embalmed by Ulysses Aldobranda and presented to the Musee du Senat, either in Naples or Bologna, "was there still in 1700, but is there no more." ( Vol. 2, p. 427, "Pneumatologie. ") [[Vol. 2, Page]] 208 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. The reader may inquire why we speak of dragons at all?