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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 459 THE "GOD" SUB ROSA. § VII. THE "HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION. T HE Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, i.e ., that recess on the Western side of the Temple which was enclosed on three sides by blank walls and had its only aperture or door hung over with a curtain -- also called the Adytum -- was common to all ancient nations. Nevertheless, a great difference is found between the secret meanings of this symbolical place, in the esotericism of the Pagans and that of later Jews; though the symbology of it was originally identical throughout the ancient Races and Nations. The Gentiles, by placing in the Adytum a sarcophagus, or a tomb ( taphos ) , and the solar-god to whom the temple was consecrated, held it, as Pantheists, in the greatest veneration. They regarded it -- in its esoteric meaning -- as the symbol of resurrection, cosmic, solar (or diurnal), and human. It embraced the wide range of periodical and (in time) punctual, Manvantaras, or the re-awakenings of Kosmos, Earth, and Man to new existences; the sun being the most poetical and also the most grandiose symbol of the same in heaven, and man -- in his re-incarnations -- on Earth. The Jews -- whose realism, if judged by the dead letter, was as practical and gross in the days of Moses as it is now* -- in the course of their estrangement from the gods of their pagan neighbours, consummated a national and levitical polity, by the device of setting forth their Holy of Holies as the most solemn sign of their Monotheism -- exoterically; while seeing in it but a universal phallic symbol -- esoterically. While the Kabalists knew but Ain-Soph and the "gods" of the Mysteries, the Levites had no tomb, no god in their adytum but the "Sacred" Ark of the Covenant -- their "Holy of Holies." When the esoteric meaning of this recess is made clear, however, the profane will be better able to understand why David danced "uncovered" before the ark of the Covenant, and was so anxious to appear vile for the sake of his "Lord," and base in his own sight. ( See 2 Samuel vi. 16-22.) The ark is the navi-form Argha of the Mysteries. Parkhurst, who has [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * But it was not so, in reality, witness their prophets. It is the later Rabbis and the Talmudic scheme that killed out all spirituality from the body of their symbols; leaving only their Scriptures -- a dead shell, from which the Soul has departed. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 460 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. a long dissertation upon it in his Greek dictionary, and who never breathes a word about it in the Hebrew lexicon, explains it thus: -- "[[ Arche ]] in this application answers to the Hebrew rasit or wisdom . . . . a word which had the meaning of the emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Arca, in which the germ of all nature was supposed to float or brood on the great abyss during the interval which took place after every mundane cycle." Quite so; and the Jewish ark of the Covenant had precisely the same significance; with the supplementary addition that, instead of a beautiful and chaste sarcophagus (the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely, ; or meaning Jod ( membrum Virile, see Kabala); (the womb ); (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and again, meaning also "an opening"; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or Y (e) H (o) V (a) H, the male and female symbol. Perhaps also, when people realise the true meaning of the office and title of the Kadesh Kadeshim, "the holy ones," or "the consecrated to the temple of the Lord, " -- the "Holy of Holies" of the latter may assume an aspect far from edifying. Iacchus again is Iao or Jehovah; and Baal or Adon, like Bacchus, was a phallic god. "Who shall ascend into the hill (the high place) of the Lord?" asks the holy king David, "who shall stand in the place of his Kadushu ?" (Psalms xxiv. 3). Kadesh may mean in one sense to devote, hallow, sanctify, and even to initiate or to set apart; but it also means the ministry of lascivious rites (the Venus-worship) and the true interpretation of the word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in Deuteronomy xxiii. 17; Hosea iv. 14; and Genesis xxxvii. from verses 15 to 22. The "holy" Kadeshuth of the Bible were identical, as to the duties of their office, with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindu pagodas. The Hebrew Kadeshim , or galli, lived "by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove," or the bust of Venus-Astarte, says verse the seventh in the twenty-third chapter of 2 Kings. The dance performed by David round the ark was the "circle-dance." said to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such was the dance of the daughters of Shiloh ( Judges xxi . 21, 23 et passim ) , and the leaping of the prophets of Baal (I Kings xviii. 26). It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is [[Vol. 2, Page]] 461 WHAT WAS THE CIRCLE-DANCE. apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion, and the taunt of Michal and the King's reply are very expressive. Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 49. "The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things necessary to repeople the earth, represents the survival of life, and the supremacy of spirit over matter, through the conflict of the opposing powers of nature.