Page 97 (part 4)

In that future day it will be perceived that the esoteric key to the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret Doctrine of the pre-historic nations, which, along with others, he has denied. It is that Doctrine alone which can trace the kinship of all human religious speculations or even so-called Revelations, and it is this teaching which infuses the Spirit of life into the lay figures on the Mounts of Meru, Olympus, Walhalla, or Sinai. If Mr. Gladstone were a younger man, his admirers might hope that his scholastic studies would be crowned by the discovery of this underlying truth. As it is, he but wastes the golden hours of his declining years in futile disputations with that giant free-thinker, Col. Ingersoll, each fighting with the weapons of exoteric temper, drawn from the arsenals of ignorant L ITERALISM. These two great controversialists are equally blind to the true esoteric meaning of the texts which they hurl at each other's head like iron bullets, while the world alone suffers by such controversies: since the one helps to strengthen the ranks of materialism, and the other those of blind Sectarianism and of the dead letter. And now we may return once more to our immediate subject. Many a time Atlantis is spoken of under another name, one unknown to our commentators. The power of names is great, and was known since the first men were instructed by the divine masters. And as Solon had studied it, he translated the "Atlantean" names into names devised by himself. In connection with the continent of Atlantis, it is desirable to bear in mind that the accounts which have come down to us from the old Greek writers contain a confusion of statements, some referring to the Great Continent and others to the last small island of Poseidonis. It has become customary to take them all as referring to the latter only, but that this is incorrect is evident from the incompatibility of the various statements as to the size, etc., of "Atlantis." Thus, in the Timaeus and Critias, Plato says, that the plain surrounding the city was itself surrounded by mountain chains. . . . . And the plain was smooth and level, and of an oblong shape, lying north and south, three thousand stadia in one direction and two thousand in the other. . . . . They surrounded the plain by an enormous canal or dike, 101 feet deep, 606 feet broad, and 1,250 miles in length. Now in other places the entire size of the island of Poseidonis is given as about the same as that assigned here to the " plain around the [[Vol. 2, Page]] 768 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. city" alone. Obviously, one set of statements refers to the great continent, and the other to its last remnant -- Plato's island. And, again, the standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million men; its navy as 1,200 ships and 240,000 men. Such statements are quite inapplicable to a small island state, of about the size of Ireland! The Greek allegories give to Atlas, or Atlantis, seven daughters (seven sub-races), whose respective names are Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, Merope, Alcyone, and Celaeno. This ethnologically, as they are credited with having married gods and with having become the mothers of famous heroes, the founders of many nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have become the seven Pleiades (?). In occult science the two are connected with the destinies of nations, those destinies being shaped by the past events of their early lives according to Karmic law. Three great nations claimed in antiquity a direct descent from the kingdom of Saturn or Lemuria (confused already several thousands of years before our era with Atlantis): and these were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians ( Vide Sanchoniathon), and the old Greeks ( Vide Diodorus, after Plato). But the oldest civilized country of Asia -- India -- can be shown to claim the same descent likewise. Sub-races guided by Karmic law or destiny repeat unconsciously the first steps of their respective mother-races. As the comparatively fair Brahmins have come -- when invading India with its dark-coloured Dravidians -- from the North, so the Aryan Fifth Race must claim its origin from northern regions. The occult sciences show that the founders (the respective groups of the seven Prajapatis) of the Root Races have all been connected with the Pole Star. In the Commentary we find: -- " He who understands the age of Dhruva* who measures 9090 mortal years, will understand the times of the pralayas, the final destiny of nations, O Lanoo. " Moreover there must have been a good reason why an Asiatic nation should locate its great progenitors and saints in the Ursa Major, a northern constellation. It is 70,000 YEARS, HOWEVER, SINCE THE POLE OF THE EARTH POINTED TO THE FURTHER END OF URSA MINOR'S TAIL; and many more thousand years since the seven Rishis could have been identified with the constellation of Ursa Major. The Aryan race was born and developed in the far north, though after the sinking of the continent of Atlantis its tribes emigrated further south into Asia. Hence Prometheus is son of Asia, and Deukalion, his son, the Greek Noah -- he who created men out of the stones of mother [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The equivalent of this name is given in the original. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 769 THE SONS OF COELUS AND TERRA. earth -- is called a northern Scythe, by Lucian, and Prometheus is made the brother of Atlas and is tied down to Mount Caucasus amid the Snows.* Greece had her Hyperborean as well as her Southern Apollo. Thus nearly all the gods of Egypt, Greece, and Phoenicia, as well as those of other Pantheons, are of a northern origin and originated in Lemuria, towards the close of the Third Race, after its full physical and physiological evolution had been completed.** All the "fables" of Greece were built on historical facts, if that history had only passed unadulterated by myths to posterity. The "one-eyed" Cyclopes, the giants fabled as the sons of Coelus and Terra -- three in number, according to Hesiod -- were the last three sub-races of the Lemurians, the "one-eye" referring to the Wisdom eye***; for the two front eyes were fully developed as physical organs only in the beginning of the Fourth Race. The allegory of Ulysses, whose companions were devoured while the king of Ithaca was saved by putting out with a fire-brand the eye of Polyphemus, is based upon the psycho-physiological atrophy of the "third" eye.