Page 87 (part 2)

Numbers 3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and their union is the emblem of life eternal in spirit on its ascending arc, and in matter as the ever resurrecting element -- by procreation and reproduction. The spiritual male line is vertical ; the differentiated matter-line is horizontal; the two forming the cross or . The former (the 3), is invisible; the latter (the 4), is on the plane of objective perception. This is why all the matter of the Universe, when analyzed by science to its ultimates, can be reduced to four elements only -- carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen: and why the three primaries, the noumenoi of the four, or graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a terra incognita and mere speculations, names, to exact Science. Her servants must believe in and study first the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the nature and acquaint themselves with the potentialities of the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or matter to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the great alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from.** As those Alche- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The "Potency of the Pythagorean Triangles" (Ragon). ** There are learned Brahmins who have protested against our septenary division. They are right from their own standpoint, as we are right from ours. Leaving the [[footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 593 SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL CORRESPONDENCES. mists have it: -- "When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary joins its middle nature with that of the Triangle," (or Triad, i.e. , the face of one of its plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other), "and becomes a cube; then only does it (the cube unfolded) become the vehicle and the number of L IFE, the Father-Mother S EVEN." The following diagram will perhaps assist the student to grasp these parallelisms. Now we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also appear in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or "soft [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Continued from previous page]] three aspects, or adjunct principles out of calculation, they accept only four Upadhis (bases) including the Ego -- the reflected image of the Logos in the "Karana Sarira" -- and even "strictly speaking . . . . only three Upadhis." For purely theoretical metaphysical philosophy, or purposes of meditation, these three may be sufficient, as shown by the Taraka Yoga system; but for practical occult teaching our septenary division is the best and easiest. It is, however, a matter of school and choice. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 594 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. stones that hardened" (Stanza) followed by the "hard plants that softened," which are the product of the mineral, for "it is from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is born" ( Commentary, Book IX., F. 19); and then to man -- all the primitive models in every kingdom of nature begin by being ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the seventh begin to branch off into species, all except men, the first of the mammalian animals* in the Fourth Round. Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in esoteric philosophy, sang evolution in the following strains: -- Principio coelum ac terras, camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum lunae, Titaniaque astra* S PIRITUS intus alit; totamque infusa per artus M ENS agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet Inde Hominum pecudumque genus, etc.** (AEneid VI . ) "First came three, or the triangle." This expression has a profound meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated in mineralogy, botany, and even in geology, as was demonstrated in the section on "Ancient Chronology," by the compound number seven, the three and the four being in it. Salt in solution proves it. For when its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of fire , whence the word " pyramids " ; while the second geometrical figure in manifested Nature is a square or a cube, 4 and 6; for, "the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal" truly -- (Enfield). The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines -- the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic nature -- fire and water, heat and cold -- begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. Says Mr. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Protista are not animals. The reader is asked to bear in mind that when we speak of "animals," the mammalians alone are meant. Crustacea, fishes, and reptiles are contemporary with, and most have preceded physical man in this Round. All were bisexual, however, before the age of mammalia in the closing portion of the secondary or Mesozoic ages, yet nearer to the Palaeozoic than the Cenozoic ages. Smaller marsupial mammalia are contemporary with the huge reptilian monsters of the Secondary. ** "First Divine Spirit within sustains the Heavens, the earth and watery plains, the moon's orb and shining stars and the Eternal Mind diffused through all the parts of nature, actuates the whole stupendous frame and mingles with the vast body of the universe. Thence proceed the race of men and beasts, the vital principles of the flying kind and the monsters which the Ocean breeds under its smooth crystal plane." "All proceeds from Ether and from its seven natures" -- said the alchemists. Science knows these only in their superficial effects. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 595 NOAH, AN ASPECT OF THE CREATOR. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," p. 164. showing that the inhabitants of the sea-shore are greatly affected by the tides: -- "The most ancient progenitors in the Kingdom of the Vertebrata . . . apparently consisted of a group of marine animals. . . . Animals living either about the mean high-water mark, or about the mean low-water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal changes in a fortnight. . . .