Page 63 (part 5)

" Compare the last sentence with what the Rabbi, who explains the Kabala to Prince Al-Chazari in the Book of that name, says; and it will be found that the Weight and Measure and Number are, in Sepher Jezirah, the attributes of the Sephiroth (the three Sephrim, or figures, ciphers) covering the whole collective number of 10; and that the Sephiroth are the collective Adam Kadmon, the "Heavenly Man" or the Logos. Thus Satan and the anointed were identified in ancient thought. Therefore, 33. "Satan is the minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of Hades" . . . . The seven or Saptaloka of the Earth with the Hindus; for Hades, or the Limbo of Illusion, of which theology makes a region bordering on Hell, is simply our globe, the Earth, and thus Satan is called -- 33 ". . . . the angel of the manifest Worlds. " It is "Satan who is the god of our planet and the only god," and this without any allusive metaphor to its wickedness and depravity. For he is one with the Logos, "the first son, eldest of the gods, " in the order [[Vol. 2, Page]] 235 THE SHADOW OF GOD. of microcosmic (divine) evolution; Saturn (Satan), astronomically, "is the seventh and last in the order of macrocosmic emanation, being the circumference of the kingdom of which Phoebus (the light of wisdom, also the Sun) is the centre." The Gnostics were right, then, in calling the Jewish god "an angel of matter," or he who breathed (conscious) life into Adam, and he whose planet was Saturn. 34. "And God hath put a girdle about his loins (the rings of Saturn), and the name of the girdle is Death." In anthropogony this "girdle" is the human body with its two lower principles, which three die, while the innermost man is immortal. And now we approach the " Secret of Satan." 37, 38, 39. " . . . Upon Satan only is the shame of generation. He hath lost his virginal estate (so hath the Kumara by incarnating): uncovering heavenly secrets, he hath entered into bondage. . . . He compasseth with bonds and limits all things. . . ." 42, 43, 44. "Twain are the armies of God: in heaven the hosts of Michael; in the abyss (the manifested world) the legions of Satan. These are the unmanifest and the manifest; the free and the bound (in matter): the virginal and the fallen. And both are the Ministers of the Father, fulfilling the word Divine. . . ." Therefore -- 55. "Holy is the Sabbath of god: blessed and sanctified is the name of the Angel of Havas " -- S ATAN. For, "The glory of Satan is the shadow of the Lord": God in the manifested world; "the throne of Satan is the footstool of Adonai" -- that footstool being the whole K osmos. ( Vide Part II ., " Is Pleroma Satan ' s Lair? ") When the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the cosmic reflection of God; it anathematizes God made manifest in matter or in the objective; it maledicts God, or the ever-incomprehensible W ISDOM, revealing itself as Light and Shadow, good and evil in nature, in the only manner comprehensible to the limited intellect of M AN. This is the true philosophical and metaphysical interpretation of Samael, or Satan, the adversary in the Kabala; the same tenets and spirit being found in the allegorical interpretations of every other ancient religion. This philosophical view does not interfere, however, with the historical records connected with it. We say "historical," because allegory and a mythical ornamentation around the kernel of tradition, in no wise prevent that kernel being a record of real events. Thus, the Kabala, repeating the time-honoured revelations of the once universal history of our globe and the evolution of its races, has presented it under the legendary form of the various records which have formed the Bible. Its historical foundation is now offered, in however imperfect a form, on these pages from the Secret Doctrine of the East; and thus [[Vol. 2, Page]] 236 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the allegorical and symbolical meaning of the Serpent of Genesis is found explained by the "Sons of Wisdom" (or angels from higher spheres, though all and each pertain to the kingdom of Satan, or Matter) revealing to men the mysteries of Heaven. Hence, also, all the so-called myths of the Hindu, Grecian, Chaldean, and Jewish Pantheons are found to be built on fact and truth. The giants of Genesis are the historical Atlanteans of Lanka, and the Greek Titans. Who can forget that Troy was once upon a time proclaimed a myth, and Homer a non-existing personage, while the existence of such cities as Herculaneum and Pompeii was denied, and attributed to mere fairy legends? Yet Schliemann proved that Troy had really existed, and the two cities, though buried for long ages under the Vesuvian lava, have had their resurrection day, and live again on the surface of the earth. How many more cities and localities called "fabulous" are on the list of future discoveries, how many more personages regarded as mythical* will one day become historical, those alone can tell who read the decrees of Fate in the astral light. As the tenets of the Eastern doctrine, however, have always been kept secret, and as the reader can hardly hope to be shown the original texts unless he becomes an accepted disciple, let the Greek and Latin scholar turn to the original texts of Hermetic literature. Let him, for one thing, read carefully the opening pages of the Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus; and then he will see our doctrines corroborated in it, however veiled its text. There also he will find the evolution of the Universe, of our Earth (called "Nature" in Pymander) as of everything else, from the "Moyst Principle" -- or the great Deep, F ATHER- M OTHER -- the first differentiation in the manifested Kosmos. First the "Universal Mind," which the hand of the Christian translator has metamorphosed in the earliest renderings into God, the Father: then the "Heavenly Man,"** which is the great Total of that Host of Angels, which was too pure for the creation of the inferior worlds or of the men of our globe, but which fell nevertheless into matter by virtue of that same evolution, as the second logos of the "Father."*** [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See the "Primeval Manus of Humanity." ** The "Heavenly Man" -- please mark again the word -- is "the L OGOS" or the "Son" esoterically.