Page 77 (part 3)

Nebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was identical with the Hindu Budha and Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration. As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpa-nitu (the Moon deity) and of Merodach, who had become Jupiter, after having been a Sun God. As Mercury the planet, Nebo was the "overseer" among the seven gods of the planets; and as the personification of the Secret Wisdom he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. The fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest of that god under another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great creative deity, and was worshipped as such, not alone at Borsippa in his gorgeous Temple, or planet-tower. He was likewise adored by the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine: then why not by the Israelites? "The planetary temple of Babylon" had "its holy of holies" within the shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of Wisdom. We are told in the Hibbert Lectures, "The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor between men and the gods . . . and Nebo, was the 'proclaimer' or 'prophet,' as he made known the desire of his father Merodach." Nebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures. Adam-Adami is a personation of the dual Adam: of the paradigmic Adam-Kadmon, the creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only nephesh, "the breath of life," but no living soul, until after his Fall. If, therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldean Scriptures -- or what remains of them -- as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial to truth and fact. There are other Orientalists who may be of a different opinion; and even were they not, it would still really matter very little. These doctrines contain the teachings of Esoteric philosophy, and this must suffice. To those who understand nothing of symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, or to him who would conceal the esoteric truth, even "heathenish foolishness." Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn for the esotericism in the religion of other nations, confessed esotericism and symbology in his own, preached [[Vol. 2, Page]] 457 THE KABALISTIC FOUR ADAMS. silence and secresy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and thus came to grief. The Doctrines of Qu-tamy, the Chaldean, are, in short, the allegorical rendering of the religion of the earliest nations of the Fifth Race. Why then should M. Renan treat the name "Adam-Adami" with such academical contempt? The author of the "Origins of Christianity" evidently knows nothing of the " origins of pagan symbolism" or of Esotericism either, otherwise he would have known that the name was a form of universal symbol, referring, even with the Jews, not to one man, but to four distinct humanities or mankinds. This is very easily proven. The Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transformation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from the Dyooknah (divine phantom) of the Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of Neschamah, the highest Soul or Spirit: this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body, nor a body of desire. This "Adam" is the prototype ( tzure ) of the second Adam. That they represent our Five Races is certain, as everyone can see by their description in the Kabala: the first being the "perfect, Holy Adam"; . . . "a shadow that disappeared" (the Kings of Edom) produced from the divine Tzelem (Image); the second is called the protoplastic androgyne Adam of the future terrestrial and separated Adam; the third Adam is the man made of "dust" (the first, innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed forefather of our own race -- the Fallen Adam. See, however, the admirably clear description of these in Mr. Isaac Myer's "Qabbalah," p. 418, et seq. He gives only four Adams, because of the Kings of Edom, no doubt. "The fourth Adam," he writes, " . . . . was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This answers to the Lower Nephesch and Guff, i.e., body, united. He has the animal power of reproduction and continuance of species," and this is the human Root-Race. It is just at this point that the modern Kabalists -- led into error by the long generations of Christian mystics who have tampered with the Kabalistic records wherever they could -- diverge from the Occultists in their interpretations, and take the later thought for the earlier idea. The original Kabala was entirely metaphysical, and had no concern with animal, or terrestrial sexes; the later Kabala has suffocated the divine ideal under the heavy phallic element. The Kabalists say: -- "God made man male and female." "Among the Qabbalists, the necessity to continued creation and existence is called the Balance," says the author of Qabbalah; and being without this "Balance," connected with Ma-qom (mysterious place),* even the First Race is not, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Simply, the womb, the "Holy of Holies" with the Semites. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 458 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. as we have seen, recognized by the Sons of the Fifth Adam. From the highest Heavenly Man, the upper Adam who is "male female" or Androgyne, down to the Adam of dust, these personified symbols are all connected with sex and procreation. With the Eastern Occultists it is entirely the reverse. The sexual relation they consider as a "Karma" pertaining only to the mundane relation of man, who is dominated by Illusion, a thing to be put aside, the moment that the person becomes "wise." They considered it a most fortunate circumstance if the Guru (teacher) found in his pupil an aptitude for the pure life of Brahmacharya. Their dual symbols were to them but the poetical imagery of the sublime correlation of creative Cosmic forces.