Page 67 (part 1)

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 289 THE "THIRD EYE." T HE R ACES WITH THE " T HIRD E YE." The subject is so unusual, the paths pursued so intricate, so full of dangerous pitfalls prepared by adverse theories and criticism, that good reasons have to be given for every step taken. While turning the light of the bull's eye called esotericism on almost every inch of the occult grounds travelled over, we have also to use its lens to throw into stronger objectivity the regions explored by exact science; this, not only in order to contrast the two, but to defend our position.* It may be complained by some that too little is said of the physical, human side of the extinct races, in this history of their growth and evolution. Much more might be said assuredly, if simple prudence did not make us hesitate at the threshold of every new revelation. That, which finds its possibility and landmarks in the discoveries of modern science, is given; all that of which exact knowledge knows nothing and upon which it is unable to speculate -- and therefore denies as facts in nature -- is withheld. But even such statements as these -- e.g ., that of all the mammalians, man was the earliest; that it is man who is the indirect ancestor of the Ape; and that he was a kind of a Cyclops in days of old -- will all be contested, yet, scientists will never be able to prove -- except to their own satisfaction -- that it was not so. Nor can they admit that the first two races of men were too ethereal and phantom-like in their constitution, organism, and shape, even to be called physical men. For, if they do, it will be found that this is one of the reasons why their relics can never be expected to be exhumed among other fossils. Nevertheless all this is maintained. Man was the store-house, so to speak, of all the seeds of life [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * For suggestiveness, we would recommend a short article in the Theosophist of August, 1887, "Esoteric Studies." Its author expounds therein quite an occult theory, though to the world a new idea: "the progress of the Monad concurring with the retrogression of Form" (666), i.e ., "with decrease of the vis formativa. " He says, "Who knows what shape vehicled the Ego in remote rings (Rounds, or races?) . . . ? May not man's type have been that of the Simiadae in its variety? Might not the monkey-kingdom of Ramayana fame rest on some far-off tradition relating to a period when that was the common lot, or rather aspect, of man?" . . . and winds up a very clever, though too short, exposition of his theory by saying that which every true occultist will endorse: "With physico-ethereal man there must be involution of sex. As physico-astral man depended on entities of the sub-human class (evolved from animal prototypes) for rebirth, so will physico-ethereal man find among the graceful, shapely orders issuing from the air -plane, one or more which will be developed for his successive embodiments when procreated forms are given -- a process which will include all mankind only very gradually. The ( pre ?) Adamic and post-Adamic races were giants; their ethereal counterparts may possibly be liliputians -- beauteous, luminous, diaphanous -- but will assuredly be giants in mind" (p. 671, art. by Visconde de Figaniere, F.T.S. ). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 290 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. for this Round, vegetable and animal alike.* As En-Soph is "One, notwithstanding the innumerable forms which are in him " ( Zohar, " i. 2l a ) , so is man, on Earth the microcosm of the macrocosm. "As soon as man appeared, everything was complete. . . . for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself all forms ( Ibid., iii. 48 a )." "The mystery of the earthly man is after the mystery of the Heavenly Man" ( ii. 76 a ). The human form -- so called, because it is the vehicle (under whatever shape) of the divine man -- is, as so intuitionally remarked by the author of "Esoteric Studies,"** the new type, at the beginning of every Round, "as man never can be, so he never has been, manifested in a shape belonging to the animal kingdom in esse. " The author proceeds, "he never formed part of that kingdom. Derived, only derived, from the most finished class of the latter, a new human form must always have been the new type of the cycle. The human shape, in one ring (?), as I imagine, becomes cast-off clothes in the next; it is then appropriated by the highest order in the servant-kingdom below." If the idea is what we understand it to mean -- for the "rings" spoken of throw some confusion upon it -- then it is the correct esoteric teaching. Having appeared at the very beginning, and at the head of sentient and conscious life, man (the astral, or the "Soul," for the Zohar, repeating the archaic teaching, distinctly says that "the real man is the Soul, and his material frame no part of him") -- man became the living and animal U NIT, from which the "cast-off clothes" determined the shape of every life and animal in this Round.*** Thus, he "created" for ages the insects, reptiles, birds, and animals, unconsciously to himself, from his remains and relics from the Third and the Fourth Rounds. The same idea and teaching are as distinctly given in the Vendidad of the Mazdeans, as they are in the Chaldean and the Mosaic allegory of the Ark, all of which are the many national versions of the original legend given in the Hindu Scriptures. It is found in the allegory of Vaivasvata Manu and his Ark with the Seven Rishis, as in that of the Rishis, each of whom is shown the father and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * It may be objected that this is a contradiction. That, as the first Root-Race appeared 300,000,000 years after the vegetation had evolved, the seed of vegetable life could not be in the First Race. We say it could; for up to man's appearance in this Round, the vegetation was of quite another kind than it is now, and quite ethereal, this for the simple reason that no grass or plants could have been physical, before there were animal or other organisms to breathe out the carbonic acid which vegetation has to imbibe for its development, its nutrition and growth. They are inter-dependent in their physical and achieved forms. ** "Visconde de Figaniere, F.T.S ." ( The Theosophist, Aug.