Page 83 (part 2)

This kind of easy death, or euthanasia, has an esoteric meaning. It symbolises the death of any adept who has reached the power and degree, as also the purification, which enable him to die only in the physical body and still live and lead a conscious life in his astral body. The variations on this theme are endless, but the secret meaning is ever the same. The Pauline expression (Hebrews xi. 5) "that he should not see death" -- ut non videret mortem -- has thus an esoteric meaning, but nothing supernatural in it. The mangled interpretation given of some Biblical hints to the effect that Enoch, "whose years will equal those of the world," (of the Solar year , 365 days,) will share with Christ and the prophet Elijah the honours and bliss of the last advent and of the destruction of Antichrist -- signify, esoterically, that some of the great adepts will return in the Seventh Race, when all Error will be made away with, and the advent of T RUTH will be heralded by those Sishta, the holy "Sons of Light." The Latin church is not always logical, nor prudent either. She declares the "Book of Enoch" an apocrypha, and has gone so far as to claim, through Cardinal Cajetan and other luminaries of the Church, the rejection from the Canon of even the Book of Jude, who, though an inspired apostle, quotes from and thus sanctifies the Book of Enoch, which is alleged to be an apocryphal work. Fortunately, some of the dogmatics perceived the peril in time. Had they accepted Cajetan's resolution, they would have been forced to reject likewise the fourth Gospel; as St. John borrows literally from Enoch, and places in the mouth of Jesus, a whole sentence! ( Vide supra, § XVIII ., sub-sect. A, about the sheep and the robbers.) Ludolph, the "father of Ethiopic literature," commissioned to investigate the various Enochian MSS . presented by Pereisc, the traveller, to the Mazarine Library, declared that "no book of Enoch could exist among the Abyssinians"! Further researches and discoveries worsted his too dogmatic assertion, as all know. Bruce and Ruppel found and brought that same work from Abyssinia some years later, and Bishop Laurence translated it. But Bruce despised it, and scoffed at its contents; as did all the rest of the Scientists. He declared it "a Gnostic work," in which "the age of giants who devour " men -- is given . . . hence it is another "Apocalypsis." Giants! another fairy-tale. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 532 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Such, however, was not the opinion of all the best critics. Dr. Hanneberg places the Book of Enoch along with the Third Book of the Maccabees, at the head of the list of those whose authority stands the nearest to that of the canonical works. Verily, "where doctors disagree . . ." As usual, however, they were all right and all wrong. To accept Enoch as a Biblical character, a single living man, is like accepting Adam as the first one. Enoch was a generic title, applied to, and borne by, scores of individuals, at all times and ages, and in every race and nation. This may be easily inferred from the fact that the ancient Talmudists and the teachers of Midrashim are not agreed generally in their views about Hanokh, the Son of Yered. . . . Some say Enoch was a great Saint, beloved by God, and taken alive to heaven ( i.e., one who reached Mukti or Nirvana, on earth, as Buddha did and others still do); and others maintain that he was a sorcerer, a wicked magician. This shows only that Enoch, or its equivalent, was a term, even during the days of the later Talmudists, which meant "Seer," "Adept in the Secret Wisdom ," etc., without any specification as to the character of the title-bearer. When Josephus, speaking of Elijah and Enoch (Antiquities, ix., 2), remarks that "it is written in the sacred books they (Elijah and Enoch) disappeared, but so that nobody knew that they died," it means simply that they had died in their personalities, as Yogis die to this day in India, or even some Christian monks to the world. They disappear from the sight of men and die -- on the terrestrial plane -- even for themselves. A seemingly figurative way of speaking, yet literally true. "Hanokh transmitted the science of (astronomical) calculation and of computing the seasons to Noah," says the Midrash Pirkah R. Eliezar (cap. viii.), referring to Henoch that which others did to Hermes Trismegistus, because the two are identical in their esoteric meaning. "Hanokh" in this case, and his "Wisdom," belong to the cycle of the Fourth Atlantean Race,* and Noah to that of the Fifth.** In this case both represent the Root-Races, the present one and the one that preceded it. In another sense, Enoch disappeared, "he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him," the allegory referring to the disappearance of the Sacred and Secret knowledge from among men; for "God" (or Java Aleim -- the high hierophants, the heads of the colleges of initiated priests***) took him; in other words, the Enochs or the Enoichions, the Seers and their knowledge and wisdom, became strictly [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Says the Zohar, "Hanokh had a book which was one with the book of the generations of Adam; this is the Mystery of Wisdom." ** Noah is heir to the Wisdom of Enoch; in other words, the Fifth is heir to the Fourth Race. *** Vide Isis Unveiled, Vol . I, p. 575, et seq. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 533 WHAT ENOCH IS, ESOTERICALLY. confined to the Secret Colleges of the Prophets, with the Jews, and to the temples with the Gentiles. Interpreted with the help of merely the symbolical key, Enoch is the type of the dual nature of man -- spiritual and physical. Hence he occupies the centre of the astronomical cross (given by Eliphas Levi from a secret work), which is a six-pointed star, "the Adonai." In the upper triangle is the Eagle; in the left lower triangle stands the lion; in the right, the bull: while between the bull and the lion, over them and under the eagle, is the face of Enoch or man. ( Vide illustrated diagram in Isis Unveiled, Vol. II ., p. 452).