Page 86 (part 5)

Thot was the inventor of the Egyptian alphabet, and the letter tau closed the alphabets of the Jews and the Samaritans, who called this character the "end" or "perfection," "culmination" and "security." Thence -- Ragon tells us -- the words terminus (end), and tectum (roof), are symbols of shelter and security, which is rather a prosaic definition. But such is the usual destiny of ideas and things in this world of spiritual decadence, if also of physical progress. P AN was at one time absolute nature, the one and G REAT-ALL; but when history catches a first glimpse of him, Pan has already tumbled down into a godling of the fields, a rural god; and history will not recognize him, while theology makes of him the devil. Yet his seven-piped flute, the emblem of the seven forces of nature, of the seven planets, the seven musical notes, of all the septenary harmony, in short, shows well his primordial character. So with the Cross. Far earlier than the Jews had devised their golden candlestick of the temple with three sockets on one side and four on the other, and made of number 7 a feminine number of generation,* thus introducing [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Reflecting on the Cross, the author of the "Source of Measures" shows that this candlestick in the temple "was so composed that counting on either side there were four candle-sockets; while at the apex, there being one in common to both sides, there were in fact three to be counted on the one side and four on the other, making in all number 7 upon the self-same idea of one in common w ith the cross display. Take a line of one unit in breadth by three units long, and place it on an incline; take another of four units long, and lean it upon this one, from an opposite incline, making the top unit of the four in length the corner or apex of a triangle. This is the display of the candlestick. Now take away the line of three units in length and cross it on the one of four units in length, and the cross form results. The same idea is conveyed in the six days of the week in Genesis, crowned by the seventh, which was used by itself as a base of circular measure" (p. 51). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 582 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the phallic element into religion, the more spiritually-minded nations had made of the cross (as 3, 4 = 7), their most sacred divine symbol. In fact, Circle, Cross, and Seven -- the latter being made a base of circular measurement -- are the first primordial symbols. Pythagoras, who brought his wisdom from India, left to posterity a glimpse into this truth. His school regarded number 7 as a compound of numbers 3 and 4, which they explained in a dual manner. On the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: "Father-Mother-Son"; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane. Some students, in view of the sacredness of Tetraktis and the Tetragrammaton, mistake the mystic meaning of the Quaternary. The latter was with the ancients only a secondary "perfection," so to speak, because it related only to the manifested planes. Whereas it is the Triangle, the Greek delta, , which was the "vehicle of the unknown Deity." A good proof of it lies with the name of the Deity beginning with Delta. Zeus was written [[ Deus ]], by the Boeotians,* thence the Deus of the Latins. This, in relation to the metaphysical conception, with regard to the meaning of the Septenary in the phenomenal world, but for purposes of profane or exoteric interpretation, the symbolism changed. Three became the ideograph of the three material elements -- air, water, earth; and four became the principle of all that which is neither corporeal nor perceptible. But this has never been accepted by the real Pythagoreans. Viewed as a compound of 6 and 1, the senary and the unity, number seven was the invisible centre, the spirit of everything (see further the explanation of 6), as there exists no body with six lines constituting its form without a seventh being found as the central point in it (see crystals and snow-flakes in so-called inanimate nature). Moreover, number seven , they said, has all the perfection of the U NIT -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it. And it is 4, which affords an arithmetical division between unity and seven, as it surpasses the former by the same number (three), as it is itself surpassed by the seven, since four is by as many numbers above one, as seven is above four . (From a MS . supposed to be by "St. Germain.") "With the Egyptians number 7 was the symbol of life eternal," says Ragon, and adds that this is why the Greek letter Z, which is but a double 7 is the initial letter of Zao, "I live," and of Zeus, "the father of all living." [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Liddell's Greek-English Lexicon. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 583 THE MYSTERY OF THE NUMBER SIX. Moreover, figure 6 was the symbol of the Earth during the autumn and winter "sleeping" months, and figure 7 during spring and summer, -- as the Spirit of life animated her at that time -- the seventh or central informing Force. We find the same in the Egyptian mythos and symbol of Osiris and Isis, personifying Fire and Water metaphysically, and the Sun and the Nile physically. The number of the Solar year, 365 in days, is the numerical value of the word Neilos (Nile). This, together with the Bull, with the Crescent and the ansated cross between its horns, and the Earth under its astronomical symbol -- -- are the most phallic symbols of later antiquity. "The Nile was the river of time with the number of a year, or year and a day (364 + 1 = 365). It represented the parturient water of Isis, or Mother Earth, the moon, the woman, and the cow, also the workshop of Osiris, representing the T ' sod Olaum of the Hebrews. The ancient name of this river was Eridanus, or the Hebrew Iardan, with the Coptic or old Greek suffix. This was the door of the Hebrew word Jared, or ' Source, ' or Descent . . .