Page 84 (part 9)

"The nine lives of a cat" is a popular saying based on good physiological and occult reasons. Mr. G. Massey gives also an astronomical reason for it which may be found in § I. " S YMBOLISM." "The cat saw the Sun, had it in its eye by night (was the eye [[footnote continued on following page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 553 THE DEGRADATION OF THE SYMBOL. forcibly of this mysticism of the circle, when he beheld a whirl-wind from which came out "one wheel upon the earth" whose work "was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel " (ch. i. vv. 4-16). . . . "for the Spirit of the living creature was in the wheels" (v. 20). "Spirit whirleth about continually and returneth again according to his circuits" -- says Solomon ( Eccles. i. 6), who is made in the English translation to speak of the "Wind," and in the original text to refer both to the Spirit and the Sun. But the Zohar, the only true glossary of the Kabalistic Preacher, in explanation of this verse, which is, perhaps, rather hazy and difficult to comprehend, says that "it seems to say that the sun moves in circuits, whereas it refers to the Spirit under the Sun, called the holy Spirit, that moves circularly, toward both sides, that they (It and the Sun) should be united in the same Essence." . . . ( Zohar, fol. 87, col. 346.) The Brahmanical "Golden Egg," from within which emerges Brahma, the creative deity, is the "circle with the Central Point" of Pythagoras, and its fitting symbol. In the Secret Doctrine the concealed U NITY -- whether representing P ARABRAHMAM, or the " G REAT E XTREME" of Confucius, or the Deity concealed by P HTA, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish E N- S OPH, is always found to be symbolized by a circle or the "nought" (absolute No-Thing and Nothing, because it is infinite and the A LL); while the god-manifested (by its works) is referred to as the diameter of that circle. The symbolism of the underlying idea is thus made evident: the right line passing through the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense, length, but neither breadth or thickness: it is an imaginary and feminine symbol, crossing eternity and made to rest on the plane of existence of the phenomenal world. It is dimensional, whereas its circle is dimensionless, or, to use an algebraical term, it is the dimension of an equation. Another way of symbolizing the idea is found in the Pythagorean sacred Decade which synthesizes, in the dual numeral Ten (the 1 and a circle or cipher), the absolute A LL manifesting itself in the W ORD or generative Power of Creation. ------- B. T HE F ALL OF THE C ROSS INTO M ATTER. Those who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol by objecting that it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period of [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] of night), when it was otherwise unseen by men (for as the moon reflects the light of the Sun, so the cat was supposed to reflect it on account of its phosphorescent eyes) . . . We might say the moon mirrored the solar light, because we have looking-glasses. With them the cat's eye was the mirror." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. antiquity the nought or cipher occurs for the first time -- especially in India -- are referred to Vol. II. of "Isis Unveiled," pp. 299, 300, et seq. Admitting for argument's sake that the ancient world was not acquainted with our modes of calculation or Arabic figures -- though we know it was -- yet the circle and diameter idea is there to show that it was the first symbol in cosmogony. Before the trigrammes of Fo-hi, Yang, the Unity, and Yin , the binary , explained cunningly enough by Eliphas Levi thus ( Dogme et Rituel, Vol. I., p. 124): -- China had her Confucius, and her Tau-ists.* The former circumscribes the "great extreme" within a circle with a horizontal line across; the latter place three concentric circles beneath the great circle, while the Sung Sages showed the "great Extreme" in an upper circle, and Heaven and Earth in two lower and smaller circles. The Yangs and the Yins are a far later invention. Plato and his school never understood the Deity otherwise, many epithets of his applied to the "God over all" ([[ ho epi pasi theos ]]) notwithstanding. Plato having been initiated, could not believe in a personal God -- a gigantic Shadow of Man. His epithets of "monarch" and "Law-giver of the Universe" bear an abstract meaning well understood by every Occultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes in the One Law that governs the Universe, recognizing it at the same time as immutable. "Beyond all finite existences," he says, "and secondary causes, all laws, ideas and principles, there is an I NTELLIGENCE or M IND ([[ nous ]]), the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded . . . the ultimate substance from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the Universe" -- who is called, by way of preeminence and excellence, the Supreme** good "the god" ([[ Theos ]]), and "the god over all." These words apply, as Plato himself shows, neither to the "Creator" nor to the "Father" of our modern Monotheist, but to the ideal and abstract cause. For, as he says, "this [gk char], the god over all, is not the truth or the intelligence, but the F ATHER of it," and its Primal cause. Is it Plato, the greatest pupil of the archaic Sages, a sage himself, for whom there was but a single object of attainment in this life -- R EAL K NOWLEDGE -- who would have ever believed in a deity that curses and damns men for ever, on the slightest provocation?*** Not he, who considered only those to be [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *Also in T'sang-t-ung-ky, by Wei-Pa-Yang. ** Cocker's "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," xi., p. 377. *** The cry of despair uttered by Count de Montlosier in his Mysteres de la Vie Humaine, p. 117, is a warrant that the Cause of "excellence and goodness," supposed by Plato to pervade the Universe is neither his Deity, nor our World.