Page 71 (part 11)

29.) It is certain that, whether "chimera" or reality, the priests of the whole world had it from one and the same source: the universal tradition [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] modern Charcots to pay attention to the delirium of their patients from a more psychic standpoint, Science, and physiology especially, might be more benefited than they are now, and truth have a wider field of fact in its knowledge. * These were the early Aryans and the bulk of the Fourth Root Races -- the former pious and meditative ( yoga -contemplation), the latter -- a fighting race of sorcerers, who were rapidly degenerating owing to their uncontrolled passions. ** The Northern and Southern Divisions of Lemuria-Atlantis. The Hyperborean and the Equatorial lands of the two continents. (See Sections about Lemuria and Atlantis in History.) *** This is Occult and refers to the property of iron which, attracted by magnetic elements, is repelled by others, which are made, by an occult process, as impervious to it as water to a blow. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 372 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. about the third great continent which perished some 850,000 years ago.* A continent inhabited by two distinct races; distinct physically and especially morally; both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature; mutually antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double evolution. Whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a fiction? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a holy island beyond the sun ( Tcheou ) , and beyond which were situated the lands of the immortal men? ( See de Rougemont, ibid. ) Do they not still believe that the remnants of those immortal men -- who survived when the holy island had become black with sin and perished -- have found refuge in the great desert of Gobi, where they still reside invisible to all, and defended from approach by hosts of Spirits? "If one has to lend ear to traditions," writes the very unbelieving Boulanger, (" Regne des Dieux, " Introduction ) . . . "the latter place before the reign of Kings, that of the Heroes and demi-gods; and still earlier and beyond they place the marvellous reign of the gods and all the fables of the golden age. . . . One feels surprised that annals so interesting should have been rejected by almost all our historians. And yet the ideas communicated by them were once universally admitted and revered by all the peoples; not a few revere them still, making them the basis of their daily life. Such considerations seem to necessitate a less hurried judgment. . . . The ancients, from whom we hold these traditions, which we accept no longer because we do not understand them now, must have had motives for believing in them furnished by their greater proximity to the first ages, and which the distance that separates us from them refuses to us . . . . Plato in his fourth book of Laws, says that, long before the construction of the first cities, Saturn had established on earth a certain form of government under which man was very happy. As it is the golden age he refers to, or to that reign of gods so celebrated in ancient fables . . . . let us see the ideas he had of that happy age, and what was the occasion he had to introduce this fable into a treatise on politics. According to Plato, in order to obtain clear and precise ideas on royalty, its origin and power, one has to turn back to the first principles of history and tradition. Great changes, he says, have occurred in days of old, in heaven and on earth, and the present state of things is one of the results ( Karma ). Our traditions tell us of many marvels, of changes that have taken place in the course of the Sun, of Saturn's reign, and of a thousand other matters that remained scattered about in human memory; but one never hears anything of the EVIL which has [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The first continent, or island, if so preferred, "the cap of the North Pole," has never perished; nor will it to the end of the Seven Races. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 373 WHEAT BROUGHT DOWN BY THE GODS. produced those revolutions, nor of the evil which directly followed them. Yet . . . . that Evil is the principle one has to talk about, to be able to treat of royalty and the origin of power. . . ." That evil , Plato seems to see in the sameness or consubstantiality of the natures of the rulers and the ruled, for he says that long before man built his cities, in the golden age, there was naught but happiness on earth, for there were no needs. Why? Because Saturn, knowing that man could not rule man, without injustice filling forthwith the universe through his whims and vanity, would not allow any mortal to obtain power over his fellow creatures. To do this the god used the same means we use ourselves with regard to our flocks. We do not place a bullock or a ram over our bullocks and rams, but give them a leader, a shepherd, i.e., a being of a species quite different from their own and of a superior nature. It is just what Saturn did. He loved mankind and placed to rule over it no mortal King or prince but -- "Spirits and genii [[ daimones ]] of a divine nature more excellent than that of man." It was god, the Logos (the synthesis of the Host) who thus presiding over the genii, became the first shepherd and leader of men.* When the world had ceased to be so governed and the gods retired, "ferocious beasts devoured a portion of mankind." "Left to their own resources and industry, inventors then appeared among them successively and discovered fire, wheat, wine; and public gratitude deified them . . . ."(" De Legibus " 1 , iv. ; in Crit. and in Politic ). And mankind was right, as fire by friction was the first mystery of nature, the first and chief property of matter that was revealed to man. " Fruits and grain, unknown to Earth to that day, were brought by the ' Lords of Wisdom ' for the benefit of those they ruled -- from other lokas (spheres). . . " say the Commentaries. Now: "The earliest inventions (?) of mankind are the most wonderful that the race has ever made. . . The first use of fire, and the discovery of the methods by which it can be kindled; the domestication of animals; and, above all, the processes by which the various cereals were first developed out of some wild grasses (?) -- these are all discoveries with which, in ingenuity and in importance, no subsequent discoveries may compare. They are all unknown to history -- all lost in the light of an EFFULGENT DAWN." (" Unity of Nature, " Argyll.) This will be doubted and denied in our proud generation.