Page 67 (part 3)

McGregor Mathers, p. 104. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 293 ANGELS CALLED BIRDS. "Like a bird that is flying from its nest, and that is the Soul from which the Shekeenah (divine wisdom or grace) does not move away" (Zohar, iii., 278 a ; Myer's Qabbalah, 217). "The Nest of the eternal Bird, the flutter of whose wings produces life, is boundless space," says the Commentary, meaning Hansa, the bird of Wisdom. It is Adam Kadmon who is the (Sephirothal) tree, and it is he who becomes the "Tree of knowledge of good and evil" esoterically. And that "tree hath around it seven columns (seven pillars) of the world, or Rectores "; the same " Progenitors " or " Sephiroth " again "operating through the respective orders of Angels in the spheres of the seven planets," etc., one of which orders begets giants ( Nephilim ) on Earth. It was the belief of entire antiquity, Pagan and Christian, that the earliest mankind was a race of giants. Certain excavations in America in mounds and in caves, have already yielded in isolated cases groups of skeletons of nine and twelve feet high.* These belong to tribes of the early Fifth Race, now degenerated to an average size of between five and six feet. But we can easily believe that the Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and that all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindu Puranas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans -- men of a superhuman tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times -- and of actual Cyclopes -- three-eyed mortals. It has been often remarked by observant writers, that the "origin of nearly every popular myth and legend could be traced invariably to a fact in Nature." In these fantastic creations of an exuberant subjectivism, there is always an element of the objective and real. The imagination of the masses, disorderly and ill-regulated as it may be, could never have conceived and fabricated ex nihilo so many monstrous figures, such a wealth of extraordinary tales, had it not had, to serve it as a central nucleus, those floating reminiscences, obscure and vague, which unite the broken links of the chain of time to form with them the mysterious, dream foundation of our collective consciousness.** [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Darwinian Evolutionists who are so wont to refer to the evidence of reversion to type -- the full meaning of which, in the case of human monsters, is embraced in the esoteric solution of the embryological problem -- as proof of their arguments, would do well to inquire into those instances of modern giants who are often 8, 9, and even 11 feet high. Such reversions are imperfect, yet undeniable reproductions of the original towering man of primeval times. ** See " Mythical Monsters, " by Ch. Gould, from whose interesting and scientific volume a few passages are quoted further on. See in Mr. Sinnett's " Occult World, " the description of a cavern in the Himalayas filled with relics of human and animal giant bones. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 294 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. The evidence for the Cyclopes -- a race of giants -- will be pointed out in forthcoming Sections, in the Cyclopean remnants, so called to this day. An indication that, during its evolution and before the final adjustment of the human organism -- which became perfect and symmetrical only in the Fifth Race -- the early Fourth Race may have been three-eyed, without having necessarily a third eye in the middle of the brow, like the legendary Cyclops, is also furnished by Science. To the Occultists who believe that spiritual and psychic involution proceeds on parallel lines with physical evolution ; that the inner senses -- innate in the first human races -- atrophied during racial growth and the material development of the outer senses; to the student of Esoteric symbology, finally, this statement is no conjecture or possibility, but simply a phase of the law of growth, a proven fact, in short. They understand the meaning of this passage in the Commentaries which says: -- " There were four-armed human creatures in those early days of the male-females (hermaphrodites); with one head, yet three eyes. They could see before them and behind them.* A K ALPA later (after the separation of the sexes) men having fallen into matter, their spiritual vision became dim ; and coordinately the third eye commenced to lose its power. . . . When the Fourth ( Race ) arrived at its middle age, the inner vision had to be awakened, and acquired by artificial stimuli, the process of which was known to the old sages.** . . . The third eye, likewise, getting gradually PETRIFIED ,*** soon disappeared. The double-faced became the one-faced, and the eye was drawn deep into the head and is now buried under the hair. During the activity of the inner man (during trances and spiritual visions) the eye swells and expands. The Arhat sees and feels it, and regulates his action accordingly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Viz., the third eye was at the back of the head. The statement that the latest hermaphrodite humanity was "four-armed," unriddles probably the mystery of all the representations and idols of the exoteric gods of India. On the Acropolis of Argos, there was a [[ Zoanon ]], a rudely carved wooden statue (attributed to Daedalus), representing a three-eyed colossus, which was consecrated to Zeus Triopas (three-eyed). The head of the "god" has two eyes in its face and one above on the top of the forehead. It is considered the most archaic of all the ancient statues ( Schol. Vatic. ad Eurip. Troad. 14). ** The Inner sight could henceforth be acquired only through training and initiation, save in the cases of "natural and born magicians," sensitives and mediums, as they are called now. *** This expression "petrified" instead of "ossified" is curious. The "back eye," which is of course the pineal gland, now so-called, the small pea-like mass of grey nervous matter attached to the back of the third ventricle of the brain, is said to almost invariably contain mineral concretions and sand , and "nothing more." ( Vide Infra. ) [[Vol. 2, Page]] 295 OCCULT PHYSIOLOGY. The undefiled Lanoo (disciple, chela) need fear no danger ; he who keeps himself not in purity (who is not chaste) will receive no help from the ' deva eye. ' " Unfortunately not.