Page 72 (part 12)

Every beneficent (astral and cosmic) action comes from the North; every lethal influence from the South Pole. They are much connected with and influence " right " and " left " hand magic. ** The more one approaches the poles the less rotation is felt; at the poles proper, the diurnal revolution is quite neutralized. Thence the expression that the sphere is "motionless." *** It is averred in Occultism that the land or island, which crowns the North Pole like a skull-cap, is the only one which prevails during the whole Manvantara of our "Round." All the central continents and lands will emerge from the sea bottom many times in turn, but this land will never change. **** Bear in mind that the Vedic and Avestian name of Fohat is Apam-Napat. In the Avesta he stands between the fire-yazatas and the water-yazatas. The literal meaning is "Son of the Waters," but these "waters" are not the liquid we know, but Ether -- the fiery waters of space. Fohat is the "Son of Ether" in its highest aspect, Akasa, the Mother-Father of the primitive Seven, and of Sound or L OGOS. Fohat is the light of the latter. See Book I. ***** This "water" is the blood or fluid of life which animates the earth, compared here to a living body. ****** Occult teaching corroborates the popular tradition which asserts the existence of a fountain of life in the bowels of the earth and in the North Pole. It is the blood of the earth, the electromagnetic current, which circulates through all the arteries; and which is said to be found stored in the "navel" of the earth. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 401 THE UNREACHABLE LAND. water. It was the belt, the sacred Himavat, which stretches around the world. * She broke toward the setting sun from her neck* * downward (to the south west), into many lands and islands, but the eternal land (the cap) broke not asunder. Dry lands covered the face of the silent waters to the four sides of the world. All these perished (in their turn). Then appeared the abode of the wicked (the Atlantis). The eternal land was now hid, for the waters became solid (frozen) under the breath of her nostrils and the evil winds from the Dragon ' s mouth, " etc., etc. This shows that Northern Asia is as old as the Second Race. One may even say that Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its root -continent, so to speak, already existed; that part of the world now known as Asia being only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial waters. If, then, the teaching is understood correctly, the first continent which came into existence capped over the whole North Pole like one unbroken crust, and remains so to this day, beyond that inland sea which seemed like an unreachable mirage to the few arctic travellers who perceived it. During the Second Race more land emerged from under the waters as a continuation of the "head" from the neck. Beginning on both hemispheres, on the line above the most northern part of Spitzbergen*** on [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Occultism points to the Himalayan chain as that "belt," and maintains that whether under the water or above, it encircles the globe. The navel is described as situated to the setting sun or to the west of the Himavat in which lie the roots of Meru, which mountain is north of the Himalaya. Meru is not "the fabulous mountain in the navel or centre of the earth," but its roots and foundations are in that navel, though it is in the far north itself. This connects it with the "central" land "that never perishes"; the land in which "the day of the mortal lasts six months and his night another six months." As the Vishnu Purana has it: "for the North of Meru there is, therefore, always night during day in other regions ; for Meru is north of all the dwipas and varshas " (islands and countries). ( Book II., chap. viii. ) Meru is therefore neither on Atlas as Wilford suggests, nor, as Wilson tried to show, "absolutely in the centre of the globe," only because "relatively with the inhabitants of the several portions, to all of whom the East is that quarter where the sun first appears." ** Even the Commentaries do not refrain from Oriental metaphor. The globe is likened to the body of a woman, "mother earth." From her neck downward, means from the inland sea now beyond the impassable barrier of ice. The Earth, as Parasara says: "is the mother and nurse, augmented with all creatures and their qualities, the comprehender of all the worlds." *** For the Stanzas call this locality by a term translated in the commentary as a place of no latitude (niraksha) the abode of the gods. As a scholiast says from the Surya-Sidhanta: "Above this (the Siddha) goes the sun when situated at the equinoxes; they have neither equinoctial shadow nor elevation of the pole ( akshonnati, v. 42). In both directions from these are two pole-stars ( dhruvatara ), fixed in the midst of the sky; [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 402 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Mercator's Projection, on our side, it may have included, on the American side, the localities that are now occupied by Baffin's Bay and the neighbouring islands and promontories. There it hardly reached, southward, the 70th degree of latitude; here - - it formed the horse-shoe continent of which the commentary speaks; of the two ends of which, one included Greenland with a prolongation which crossed the 50th degree a little south west, and the other Kamschatka, the two ends being united by what is now the northern fringe of the coasts of Eastern and Western Siberia. This broke asunder and disappeared. In the early part of the Third Race -- Lemuria was formed ( Vide supra ). When it was destroyed in its turn, Atlantis appeared. [[This page continued in next section]] [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] to those who are situated in places of no latitude (niraksha) both these have their place in the horizon. Hence there is (on that land) no elevation of the poles, the two pole-stars being situated in their horizon; but their degrees of colatitude ( lumbaka ) are 90; at Meru the degrees of latitude ( aksha ) are of the same number." (43 and 44.)