Page 93 (part 7)

But if we are told that this refers only to our world as we now see it, -- then we shall refer the reader to the New Testament, where St. Paul speaks (in Hebrews i. ) of the Son (the manifested Power) whom (God) hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (plural.)* [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * This relates to the Logos of every Cosmogony. The unknown Light -- with which he is said to be co-eternal and coeval -- is reflected in the "First-Born," the Protogonos ; [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 704 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. This "Power" is Hokhmah or (Chochmah) the Wisdom and the Word. We shall probably be told that by this term "worlds," the stars, heavenly bodies, etc., were meant. But apart from the fact that "stars" were not known as "worlds" to the ignorant editors of the Epistles, if even they must have been known to Paul, who was an Initiate ("a Master-Builder"), we can quote on this point an eminent theologian, Cardinal Wiseman. In Vol. I, p. 309, of his work treating of the indefinite period of the six days -- or shall we say "too definite" -- period of the six days of creation and the 6,000 years, he confesses that we are in total darkness upon the meaning of that statement of St. Paul, unless we are permitted to suppose that allusion is made in it, i.e., the period which elapsed between the first and second verses of chapter i. of Genesis -- to those primitive revolutions, i.e. , the destructions and the re-productions (of the world) indicated in chapter i. of Ecclesiastes ; or, to accept, with so many others, and in its literal sense, the passage ( Hebrews i. 1,) that speaks of the creation of worlds -- in plural. . . . . It is very singular, he adds, that all the cosmogonies should agree to suggest the same idea, and preserve the tradition of a first series of revolutions, owing to which the world was destroyed and again renewed. Had the Cardinal studied the Zohar his doubts would have changed to certitude. Thus saith Idra Suta (in the "Zohar," iii., 292, c.): "There were old worlds which perished as soon as they came into existence; worlds with and without form called Scintillas -- for they were like the sparks under the Smith's hammer, flying in all directions. Some were the primordial worlds which could not continue long, because the 'aged' -- his name be sanctified -- had not as yet assumed his form,* the workman was not yet the 'Heavenly man.' "** Again in the Midrash, written long before the Kabala of Simeon Ben Iochai, Rabbi Abahu explains: -- "The Holy One, blessed be his name, has successively formed and destroyed sundry worlds before this one*** . . . Now this refers both to the first races (the "Kings of Edom") and to the worlds destroyed. " **** "Destroyed" means here what we call [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] and the Demiurgos or the Universal Mind directs his Divine Thought into the Chaos that under the fashioning of minor gods will be divided into the seven oceans -- Sapta samudras. It is Purusha, Ahura Mazda, Osiris, etc., and finally the gnostic Christos, who is in the Kabala, Hokhmah or Wisdom the "Word." * The form of Tikkun or the Protogonos, the "first-born," i.e. , the universal form and idea, had not yet been mirrored in Chaos. ** The "Heavenly man" is Adam Kadmon -- the synthesis of the Sephiroth, as "Manu Swayambhuva" is the synthesis of the Prajapatis. *** Bereshith Rabba, Parsha IX. **** This refers to the three Rounds that preceded our fourth Round. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 705 WHO ARE THE KINGS OF EDOM? "obscurations." This becomes evident when one reads further on the explanation given: -- "Still when it is said that they (the worlds) perished, it is only meant thereby that they (their humanities) lacked the true form, till the human (our) form came into being, in which all things are comprised and which contains all forms . . . . * -- it does not mean death, but only denotes a sinking down from their status . . ." (that of worlds in activity).** When, therefore, we read of the destruction of the worlds, this word has many meanings, which are very clear in several of the Commentaries on the Zohar and Kabalistic treatises. As said elsewhere, it means not only the destruction of many worlds which have ended their life-career, but also that of the several continents which have disappeared, as also their decline and geographical change of place. The mysterious "Kings of Edom" are sometimes referred to as the "Worlds" that had been destroyed; but it is a "cloak." The Kings who reigned in Edom before there reigned a King in Israel, or the "Edomite Kings," could never symbolize the "prior worlds," but only the "attempts at men" on this globe: the "pre-Adamite races," of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First Root-Race. For, as, speaking of the six Earths (the six "limbs" of Microprosopus) it is said that the Seventh (our Earth) came not into the computation when the Six were created (the six spheres above our globe in the terrestrial chain), so the first seven Kings of Edom are left out of calculation in Genesis. By the law of analogy and permutation, in the "Chaldean Book of Numbers," as also in the "Books of Knowledge" and of "Wisdom," the "seven primordial worlds" mean also the "seven primordial" races (sub-races of the First Root-Race of the Shadows ); and, again, the Kings of Edom are the sons of "Esau the father of the Edomites" (Gen. xxxvi. 43); i.e. , Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan. "Two nations are in thy womb," saith the Lord to Rebekah; and Esau was red and hairy. From verse 24 to 34, ch. xxv. of Genesis contains the allegorical history of the birth of the Fifth Race. "And the Kings of ancient days died and their chiefs (crowns) were found no more," says Siphrah Dzenioutha (3). . . .