Page 84 (part 4)

Finally, Mercury, as Cornutus*** shows, was sometimes figured under a cubic form, without arms, because "the power of speech and eloquence can prevail without the assistance of arms or feet." It is this cubic form which connects the termini directly with the cross, and the eloquence or the power of speech of Mercury, which made the crafty Eusebius say "Hermes is the emblem of the Word which creates and interprets all," for it is the creative word; and he shows Porphyry teaching that the speech of Hermes, (now interpreted "Word of God" (!) in Pymander) a creative speech ( Verbum ) , is the seminal principle scattered throughout the Universe.**** In Alchemy "Mercury" is the radical Moyst, primitive or elementary water, containing the seed of the Universe, fecundated by the solar fires. To express this fecundating principle, a phallus was often added to the cross (the male and female, or the vertical and the horizontal united) by the Egyptians ( Vide Egyptian Museums). The cruciform termini also represented this dual idea, which was found in Egypt in the cubic Hermes. The author of "Source of Measures" tells us why. (But see the last page of § XVI ., about the Gnostic Priapus). As shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the tau, or the Egyptian, form; or again, "the circle attached to the tau gives the ansated cross" of the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their priests and their "Kings Initiates" for ages, and also what was meant by "the attachment of a man to the cross," which idea "was made to co-ordinate with that of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form." Only the latter came into action aeons and ages after the idea of the carpenter and artificer of the Gods, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *Montfaucon, Antiquities. See plates in Vol. I., plate 77. The disciples of Hermes go after their death to his planet, Mercury -- their Kingdom of Heaven. ** Cornutus. *** Lydus de Mensibus, iv. **** Preparat, Evang. I. iii. ch. 2. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 543 A PERSONAL, IS A FINITE GOD. Visvakarma, crucifying the "Sun-Initiate" on the cruciform lathe. As the same author writes: "the attachment of a man to the cross . . . was made use of in this very form of display by the Hindus"; but, made "to co-ordinate" with the idea of the new rebirth of man by spiritual, not physical regeneration. The candidate for initiation was attached to the tau or astronomical cross with a far grander and nobler idea than that of the origin of mere terrestrial life . On the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher purpose in life than that of procreating their species. Thus, geometrically, and according to the reading of the Bible by means of the numerical method, the author of the "Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery" is quite correct. Their (the Jewish) entire system -- "Seems to have been anciently regarded as one resting in nature, and one which was adopted by nature, or God, as the basis of law of the exertion practically of creative power -- i.e ., it was the creative design, of which creation was practically the application. This seems to be established by the fact that, under the system set forth, measures of planetary times serve coordinately as measures of the size of planets, and of the peculiarity of their shapes -- i.e., in the extension of their equatorial and polar diameters" . . . etc., etc. (p. 3). . . . "This system seems to underlie the whole Biblical structure (that of creative design), as a foundation for its ritualism and for its display of the works of the Deity in the way of architecture, by use of the sacred unit of measure in the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle, and the Temple of Solomon." Thus, on the very showing of the defenders of this system the Jewish Deity is proved to be, at best, only the manifested duad , never the One absolute A LL. Geometrically demonstrated, he is a NUMBER; symbolically, an euhemerized Priapus; and this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting after the demonstration of real spiritual truths, and the possession of a god with a divine, not anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the most learned of modem Kabalists can see in the cross and circle nothing but a symbol of the manifested creative and androgyne deity in its relation to, and interference with, this phenomenal world.* One author believes that "man (read the Jew and Rabbi) obtained knowledge of the practical measure . . . . by which nature was thought to adjust the planets in size to harmonize with the notation of their movements" . . . . and adds: "it seems he did obtain it, and esteemed its possession as the means of his realization of the Deity -- that is, he approached so nearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own, only infinitely more powerful, as to be able to realize a law of creation [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See the Zohar and the two Qabbalahs (by Messrs. I. Myer and Mathers), with interpretations, if the reader would satisfy himself of this. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 544 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. established by that Being, which must have existed prior to any creation (Kabalistically called the Word ) " ( "Source of Measures," p . 5). This may have satisfied the practical Semite mind, but the Eastern Occultist has to decline the offer of such a God; indeed, a Deity, a Being, "having a mind like that of man, only infinitely more powerful," is no God that has any room beyond the cycle of creation. He has nought to do with the ideal conception of the eternal universe. He is, at best, one of the creative subordinate powers, the Totality of which is called the "Sephiroth," the "Heavenly Man," and Adam Kadmon, the second logos of the Platonists. This very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest definitions of the Kabala and its mysteries, e.g ., by John A. Parker, as quoted in the same work: -- "The key of the Kabala is thought to be the geometrical relation of the area of the circle inscribed in the square, or, of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to the relation of diameter to circumference of a circle with the numerical value of this relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god-names of Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically of these relations respectively, the first being of circumference, the latter of diameter), embraces all.