Page 70 (part 4)

In "Johannes Magnus' Infolio" one sees the representation of the demi-god, the giant Starchaterus (Starkad, the pupil of Kroszharsgrani, the Magician) who holds under each arm a huge stone covered with Runic characters; and Starkad, according to Scandinavian legend, went to Ireland and performed marvellous deeds in the North and South, East and West. ( See " Asgard and the Gods. ") [[Vol. 2, Page]] 347 UNIVERSAL WITNESSES. can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist." Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brinham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode of divination or oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller ones, such as Brinham Rocks, with some revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the bishops of the middle ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.* As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy and MAGIC. E. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in his Antiquites de France, Vol. ix., an article showing the Chatam peramba (the Field of Death, or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical with the old tombs at Carnac -- "a prominence and a central tomb." . . . "Bones are found in them (the tombs)," he says, "and Mr. Hillwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives (of Malabar) calling the tombs the dwellings of Rakshasas (giants)." Several stone circles, "considered the work of the Panch Pandava (five Pandus), as all such monuments are in India, so numerous in that country," when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi, "were found to contain human bones of a very large size. " ( T. A. Wise, in " History of Paganism in Caledonia, " p. 36). Again, de Mirville is right in his generalization, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly witnesses to "great natural geological commotions" (Charlton), and "are the work of Nature " (Cambry) is now exploded, his remarks are very just. "Before the impossibility of such a theory is asserted, we advise Science to reflect . . . . and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends: for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking stones will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to see clearer and realise once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity " (" Fetichisme, " p. 288). It is just what we can never repeat too often, though the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and mediaeval theology in its interpretations of the so-called Revelation. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape -- a transformation requiring millions of years -- and yet fears to make mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Charton, the Author of " Voyageurs anciens et modernes, " quoted by de Mirville. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 348 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest; from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian. Yet it refuses to man, who physiologically is only a higher mammal and animal, such transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man -- the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this "theory," than in that of refusing to man any spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time, as a distinct genus in the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present exact Sciences, they are withal more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than a mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life a fully conscious man ; even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two "poor cousins" of the Quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Haeckel that (objective) life on our globe "is a logical postulate of Scientific natural history," but add that the rejection of a like Spiritual involution, from within without, of invisible subjective Spirit-life -- eternal and a Principle in Nature -- is more illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by blind forces inherent in matter, without any external help. Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being in the following manner. First, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in Space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter named organic PROTEIN. Then, under the influence of incident forces, those states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into and resulted in new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows. After which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's Requiem. This was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc., ad infinitum ; its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. . . . . What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialistic savants tell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown. Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of [[Vol. 2, Page]] 349 IT TAKES A GOD TO BECOME A MAN. species, what he says in it applies to our doctrine. "Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradations on a pre-existing kind of being. " (" Essays on Physiology, " Subj. p.