The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
2 [[Vol.
2, Page]] 563 THE SEVEN THUNDERS.
§ XXIII.
THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE.
We are reminded in King's "Gnostics" that the Greek language has but one word for vowel and voice; and this has led the uninitiated to many erroneous interpretations.
On the simple knowledge, however, of that well-known fact a comparison may be attempted, and a flood of light thrown upon several mystic meanings.
Thus the words, so often used in the Upanishads and the Puranas, "Sound" and "Speech," may be collated with the Gnostic "Vowels" and the "Voices" of the Thunders and Angels in "Revelation." The same will be found in Pistis Sophia, and other ancient Fragments and MSS.
This was remarked even by the matter-of-fact author of "The Gnostics and their Remains." Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus -- a Pythagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly -- had received in mystic revelation.
It is said that "Marcus had it revealed unto him that 'the seven heavens'* .
.
.
.
sounded each one vowel, which, all combined together, formed a complete doxology"; in clearer words: "the Sound whereof being carried down (from these seven heavens) to earth, became the creator and parent of all things that be on earth." (See "Hippolytus," vi., 48, and King's Gnostics, p.
200.) Translated from the Occult phraseology into still plainer language this would read: "The Sevenfold LOGOS having differentiated into seven Logoi, or creative potencies (vowels) these (the second logos, or "Sound") created all on Earth.
Assuredly one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help seeing in St.
John's Apocalypse, a work of the same school of thought.
For we find John saying (chap.
x.
3, 4), "Seven thunders uttered their voices .
.
.
and I was about to write .
.
.
(but) I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 'Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.' " The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi and full Initiates.
Yet the sameness of equivalent expressions used, and of the underlying ideas, always betrays a portion of the mysteries.
We must always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically revealed, especially in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by seven, or forty-nine, appear.
Now when the Rabbi Jesus is requested (in Pistis [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *The "Heavens" are identical with "Angels," as already stated.
[[Vol.
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Sophia ) by his disciples to reveal to them, "the mysteries of the Light of thy ( his ) Father" ( i.e.
, of the higher SELF enlightened by Initiation and Divine knowledge), Jesus answers: "Do ye seek after these mysteries?
No mystery is more excellent than they which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light, everlasting, not to be uttered.
Nothing therefore is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only THE MYSTERY of the seven vowels and their FORTY AND NINE POWERS, and their numbers thereof; and no name is more excellent than all these vowels." "The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in DARKNESS, but they are the LIFE and LIGHT and the continuation thereof through the Great Age" -- says the Commentary speaking of the "Fires." Now it becomes evident that, in every esoteric interpretation of exoteric beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there was the same underlying idea -- the basic number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine THREE ( ) making the perfect number ten.
Also, these numbers applied equally to divisions of time, to cosmography metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible nature.
Thus these Seven vowels with their forty-nine powers are identical with the three and the Seven Fires of the Hindus and their forty-nine fires; identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh; identical with those of the Jewish Kabalists.
The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode of blinds ) , made the duration of each successive renewal (what we call in esoteric parlance Round ) of the seven renewals of the globe only of 7,000 years, instead of, as is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of the universe 49,000 years only.
(Compare § "Chronology of the Brahmins.") Now, the Secret Doctrine furnishes a key which reveals to us on indisputable grounds of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical and monstrous half-man and half-bird, -- the Vahan or vehicle on which Vishnu (who is Kala, "time") is shown to ride -- is the origin of all other such allegories.
He is the Indian phoenix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the "man-lion" Singha, of whose representations the so-called "gnostic gems" are so full.* "Over the seven rays of the lion's crown, and corresponding to their points, stand, in many cases, the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet [Gk char], testifying to the Seven Heavens." This is the Solar lion and the emblem of the Solar cycle, as [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *As confessed by King, the great authority on Gnostic antiquities, these gnostic gems are not the work of the Gnostics, but belong to pre-christian periods, and are the work of magicians (p.
241).
[[Vol.
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Garuda* is that of the great cycle, the "Maha-Kalpa" co-eternal with Vishnu, and also, of course, the emblem of the Sun, and Solar cycle.
This is shown by the details of the allegory.
At his birth, Garuda is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, on account of his (Garuda's) "dazzling splendour," and called thereupon Gaganeswara, "lord of the sky." Again, his being represented as Osiris, and by many heads of allegorical monsters on the Abraxas (gnostic) gems, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk (solar birds), denotes Garuda's solar and cyclic character.
His Son is Jatabu, the cycle of 60,000 years.
As well remarked by C.
W.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage presents a cosmogonic narrative: 'the Sound whereof being carried down (from these seven heavens) to earth, became the creator and parent of all things that be on Earth,' describing how the universe came into being from divine sound.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage centers on the injunction 'Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not,' and states 'The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi and full Initiates,' making the concealment of esoteric teachings for the initiated a central theme.
The twenty-two Hebrew letters as the building blocks through which God creates and sustains all existence.
The passage identifies the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet as creative potencies with forty-nine powers, functioning as the building blocks through which the divine creates and sustains existence, directly paralleling the concept of letters as creative elements.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The passage explicitly centers on 'The Sevenfold LOGOS having differentiated into seven Logoi, or creative potencies (vowels)' and identifies the second Logos or 'Sound' as the creator of all things on Earth.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The entire passage is structured around the number seven and its multiplication (49), the compound of three and four making ten, and the application of these numbers to cosmography, time, and man — making numerical mysticism the central organizing principle.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
The passage identifies 'Sound' and 'Speech' (vowels) as the creative principle carried from the heavens to earth, making vibration/sound the medium through which all things are created.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage identifies the spoken/vocalized vowels as the creative force that 'became the creator and parent of all things that be on earth,' directly asserting that the uttered word carries causal-magical creative power.